sweet with a bit of death
by Darkironprincess17
Summary: Leah Hayes is an aspiring grim reaper with many dreams. She doesn't know what she's in for when she signs up to be an actual shinigami, some of the things including an invasion of the shinigami realm, life and death situations and cute guys! WilliamXOC
1. a new grim reaper

Chapter one: A new grim reaper

I woke up early in the morning. The light from the blue sky of the Shinigami world shone down through my bedroom window. The first thing I did was run to shut the curtains. The light really annoyed me. In the shinigami world, almost everything was a light shade of blue. The streets were light blue, the library was light blue, almost everything was blue. It pissed me off. I sat at my vanity table and brushed my copper blonde hair until it shone. I curled it slightly and dabbed on some mascara. All shinigami could be distinguished by their eye color, which was always the same; a bright yellow green. My eyes were more yellow than green and shone like lanterns in the dark automatically. They would also light up when I was angry.

I took a look at myself in the mirror. I was small and fragile looking. I was turning twenty two this year, but I always looked as if I was still eighteen or nineteen because of how thin and delicate I was. I had long waist length curly copper blonde hair, the standard shinigami eyes, delicate features and small hands with long fingers. When I had told my friends I wanted to become a grim reaper, they had started laughing. It's true I looked too weak to even break a stick but laughing was just downright mean. Grim reapers and shinigami were the same thing. Grim reapers, however, were those shinigami who were trained to do their job, who had licensed death scythes and who went to the human world regularly. I had never been to the human world even once before in my life. I had never seen a living human either.

Everyone who had been to the human world told me that they looked exactly like us, but couldn't use death scythes. Some people said humans were nice. Others said they were disgusting and bloodthirsty monsters. I guessed that just like Shinigami, humans could vary in personality as well. They said that we were also far ahead in technology. What we had now, they would only have in a hundred and fifty years. I couldn't imagine life without a computer or a cell phone to call my friends. The portable phones they had were huge. Our portable phones were pretty big, but they weren't any bigger than our hands. It was good in a way that they were big, because I dropped my cell phone all the time, down stairs, from the pier into the water at times by accident. If it was any less bulky, it would have broken instantly.

I felt nervous as I got out my shinigami training uniform. Today was my first day that I would begin my training to become a Grim Reaper. There was a building attached to the library of Cinematic records where all the new grim reapers did their training. I had no idea how they wanted us to fight in this. My uniform consisted of a pleated black miniskirt, a white dress shirt and a black blazer with silver lining and a black bow. I put it on and did the bow up. I put black leggings under my skirt to make it even a little more decent. How was I supposed to fight in a miniskirt? The people in the managerial class were probably insane. Or perverts. I laced up my boots.

"You know, you really shouldn't close your window like that. I won't be able to get in." A voice came from the window. I turned to see my old best friend sitting on the windowsill.

"Hey Grell" I ran to hug him. He was like my big brother. I looked into his smiling face. "One of your eyelashes is coming off."

"Huh?" He ran over to my vanity table and fixed it. I laughed.

"You've been getting crazier and crazier these days, Grell."

"I can't help it if I want to look my best." Grell said, patting his red hair into place.

"Did you meet a handsome man in the human world?" I asked teasingly.

"Oh yes… the red river of passion flows through me" He said, still looking at his reflection. "He already has a contract though. He will be mine later on, though, when he gets rid of that brat once and for all."

"A contract? You mean he's a demon?" I asked.

"Yes… look, I managed to snap this photo of him yesterday." He said, showing me a picture of a guy with long black hair. He certainly was attractive, but I didn't see much in him. To me, demons were disgusting creatures no matter how attractive they were. "He's absolutely to die for, isn't he?"

"I guess…"

"Oh, come on, Leah, I need some reassurance at a time like this. Woman to woman talk. Do I look good enough?"

"I say you look fine." I turned towards the windowsill making a mental note to look up a spell that would turn Grell permanently into a girl. Then he might have a chance. "Do I look fine?" I asked.

"You seriously aren't worried about how you look at Shinigami School, are you?" Grell asked.

"Come on, how often do you see a female grim reaper? Besides those who work at the office"

"More importantly, how often do you see a very cute one like yourself who can also use telekinesis?"

"You're not making it better." I said. "I already feel like a freak with my powers. By the way, you still haven't given me the hair color changing brush."

"Your hair is amazing as it is. Though it would look nicer if it was red… but it looks better the way it is than brown!" We walked out the door. Some shinigami girls and boys were already walking around by the pier. I always wondered why it was called a pier. There were never any ships. It was just a slab of concrete, a dock below it, and then a sea of water.

"Come on, I'll walk you there myself. I have some business to attend to with William… Speaking of William, he'll be the one directing all your lessons today. He's not too bad. He's an insensitive clod sometimes who won't see a lady for her true beauty, but he can be nice at times. I'm sure he won't pay much attention to you. Young grim reapers don't really take his attention." Grell kept talking as we walked up the path. Once you got him started on a good conversation, no one could make him shut up. But after ten years, I was used to it.

"I'm not that young. I'm only a year younger than you two." I said. I made a pebble lift off the ground and fling itself into the sea.

"You're still only beginning your studies as a grim reaper. By the way, when you're there, you'll have to address me as Senior Sutcliff." He said smugly.

"Not a chance. I'll still call you Grell. Didn't you put on my report that we were family even though we aren't?"

"Um… well… I might have tweaked it up a bit…"

"Why?" I demanded. "I spent all night working to make my resume perfect!"

"Well… I wanted to make you seem more attractive to some of the guys there… You're a budding flower, Leah. You haven't had your first romantic experience and I say it's about time!"

"It's not like everyone will be reading my resume, only a select few. Besides, I don't want a boyfriend who's a grim reaper. It will only make my studies harder." I said, doing a face palm. This was going to be an absolute nightmare.

"I'm sure once you see all the charming and handsome young men; you'll change your mind." Grell said as he opened the door to the shinigami library. "After you" I walked in, slightly dreading what I would see inside.


	2. meeting William

Chapter 2: meeting William

The library entrance was huge. There were two doors. One probably went into the actual library, the other into the training room. Once again, everything was tinted light blue. What a piss off. Why couldn't they make it red? Red was my favourite color, but I wasn't as obsessed with it as Grell was.

"Grell Sutcliff" A voice from the other end of the library room said, making both of us jump. "Have I not told you that you are no longer allowed to escort fellow grim reapers into the training facility after last week's incident?"

"Aw, come on, Will, she's my sister!"

"The hell I'm not! We don't even have the same last name." I said as Grell put his hands on my shoulders.

"You're Leah Sutcliff, I presume?" The guy said. His hair was dark brown and slicked back and he wore thick glasses. I didn't like when boys wore glasses. Then again, it was unavoidable in the shinigami world as ninety eight percent of grim reaper boys had really bad eyesight. He frequently adjusted them with what looked like a hedge clipper. People had weird death scythes these days. I would just settle for the traditional death scythe. The guy was wearing a black suit and was looking at us with a disdainful expression. I immediately hated this guy. Who did he think he was?

"Actually, my last name is Hayes." I corrected. "He tampered with my resume. I actually don't have any family relations with him." I said, jerking my thumb behind my shoulder to Grell.

"Unfortunately, mistakes aren't allowed in the computer system. You'll have to go back and resubmit your resume tonight." _What a prick_. I thought. I'd never seen a more uptight or stuck up guy than William T. Spears.

"Now look what you've done." I said as I made a book fly off the shelf and hit Grell over the head. It flew back immediately.

"Ow… I'm sorry… don't hurt me again… I'll turn your resume back the way it was tonight…"

"Jerk" I muttered.

"Miss Hayes" William called. I looked around. "You're a minute late for your studies. I want you to know that lateness is not tolerated at Shinigami School. If you are late one more time, I will have to suspend you." I glared at him.

"What's a minute's difference?" I asked. "It's not twelve yet on my watch. Your clock is ahead."

"You will be on time by this clock. You would be wise to learn your lesson once."

"And you would be wise not to be such a prick." I said.

"Watch the way you talk to superiors, girl. Speak out of line again and your position as a grim reaper will be permanently denied."

I turned and stared sideways at him, my famed trick. My eyes glowed so bright that even Mr. Stick-up-his-ass took a step back.

"Try it" I hissed. "I dare you. There are other people in your class as well. I'm sure five against one won't do you too much good." Without another word I left.

"Leah, wait!" Grell began to walk after me.

"You will stay here, Grell Sutcliff." I was so angry. That guy pissed me off so much! I stood against the wall, listening to their conversation. I was shaking with anger. One minute? What did one minute's difference make me? "Who is that woman?" I heard William ask.

"Oh… Leah's a very old childhood friend of mine."

"She has telekinesis powers?"

"Um… yeah…"

"Hmm… we haven't had a grim reaper who could control their telekinesis powers in a long time. Still, I'm not inclined to allow her to get a job as a grim reaper. That woman has such a dirty mouth."

"That was actually her controlling her anger" Grell said. "You haven't heard her when she gets hurt…" He snickered. "It's rather funny actually."

I opened the door as I didn't want to hear any more. I took a spot in the classroom somewhere at the back. The front was all taken by boys whose eyesight was probably so bad they needed to be up at the front to see the board even with their glasses on. I only needed glasses to be able to read something from a long distance away, and the classroom was pretty small. Pretty soon William walked in.

Why the hell did we have to be here if the idiot just took his time walking in? I swear I'd been sitting here for

"Good afternoon." He said. "I am William T. Spears. I will be your instructor on your way to becoming a Grim Reaper. However, the road to becoming a grim reaper is rough and filled with obstruction and challenges. Only half of you will progress to the next level after this course, and less than half of those will become real Grim Reapers."

Everyone in the classroom began to talk with one another, shocked muttering filling the room. It sounded like hundreds of buzzing bees. I stayed silent. I knew that. William launched into a little lecture about what the purpose of Grim Reapers was. If one got cut with a death scythe, if they didn't do anything to deserve death, they would live. Yet if they did do something to deserve death, they would die instantly. A death scythe could be anything sharp, and then enchanted to make sure nothing could cut it except for another death scythe. We would get two tiny wooden axes to use as death scythes for now.

"These things are crap" I muttered. "How are we supposed to fight with these?"

"You'll have to find a way, Miss Hayes." William was standing right beside me. "That's the next exercise. You all will be taken into training areas where you will get a chance to get accustomed to your new death scythes for a week. The first test will be when you are put into pairs. You will have to fight one another. I do hope that none of you have done anything to deserve death. The first person to force the other partner's cinematic record to unroll will be the winner. They will progress to the next test."

William opened the room at the back and let us all into a huge arena. There were roughly about eight targets per person, eight dummies we could attack as much as we wanted and various other items that could help us. I held my little axes and stared down at them. Well… they weren't much, but I could see the sharp glint to the ends. If used just right, they could inflict a lot of damage. William gave us the signal and we began hacking at our targets.

I threw my axes at the targets and used telekinesis to make sure they hit the target perfectly at all times. I tried hacking up my dummies. It wasn't easy. I had to make sure the axe was positioned perfectly at all times or else it wouldn't work too well.

I also had the strange feeling that William was watching my progress more than anyone's. That drove me to make myself look like an even better fighter. I could probably kick his butt with enough practice and demote him. Oh ho ho, I would love that chance. I was sure I would pass the first test. After all, there were plenty of things I could levitate in the arena, including myself and other people, though only for a short period of time. It would be funny to make William go flying. He never said we were only allowed to use our death scythes and nothing else. I would cream everyone by the end of next week, I was sure of it.


	3. anger

Chapter 3: anger

I walked home in a rage, with Grell struggling to keep up with me.

"Hey, Leah, talk to me! What happened? Why are you so angry?"

"It's that asshole William! God, I've never met anyone so irritating in my entire life! He dared to pick on me more than anyone else! He spent all the goddamn training day watching me and criticizing everything I did! I'm not going to be perfect all the time! I wish he'd go to hell!" My eyes were probably glowing so bright that people automatically moved away from me as Grell and I navigated through the big crowd of people in the city square. "We are coming home and you are retyping my entire resume for me, Grell Sutcliff. Don't you dare make a single mistake. I want it perfect."

Grell gulped.

"Sure I will…"

Grell and I shared a semi-detached house. I lived in one side, and he lived in the other side. We had several holes in the walls that separated us so we could talk to each other whenever we wanted. I slammed the door behind me. Only my determination to be a grim reaper remained of all my previous desires. I didn't want to face William for another day. I wanted to kill him so much. I slammed the door into my room and shut the window and locked it. Then I let things rip. This was the way I got rid of my anger. I would lift everything in my room, make it fly around in circles, slam into things, and then place it back the way it was. I was sure my room would look a lot more beat up than this after my training as a shinigami was over.

The last table clunked back into place. When the time came for me to fight my partner, I would make the arena look like a tornado had passed through it. Which it would. I slammed my fist down on the table and nearly broke it. Why did he have to get on my nerves so much?

Not only did he annoy the hell out of me, but I couldn't stop thinking about him! Why did I want to impress him so much? He was just your average loser shinigami who pissed me off endlessly. I wanted to make all the cinematic records in the library come off the shelves and bury him in a pile of books. Maybe I should steal his glasses when he wasn't looking? He was probably as blind as a bat without them. Hell, he was blind as a bat with them!

There was the other problem that every time I got pissed off, my eyes would start glowing yellow. He pissed me off endlessly. Would my eyes glow endlessly too? Everyone would think I was a freak and it would be all William's fault! Why did he have to exist?

Grell told me that the demon had flung Grell's chainsaw at William. I wished that it had actually hit him. I had been aware that he had been going around killing prostitutes with a human woman. I told him to do as he pleased, though it wouldn't end well. As usual, I was right. He had been demoted to scissors for two months. Every night he came back, he would invite me over and make me tea while he told me his adventures. He and William had fought a crazy angel who had broken into the library of cinematic records. I wished the angel had killed William.

He acted so prim and proper it was sickening. Maybe that was just me because I had grown up with Grell who was as stupid and improper as you could get. I certainly preferred Grell over William any day. Why couldn't Grell teach us? I knew the answer to that question already though

I spent all evening practicing, lunging with my axes, flipping them around, trying my hand with two, with one, with them in different hands, throwing them. I did this for roughly five hours, and I was dead tired by the time I was done. _I will be the next legendary shinigami! _I promised myself. _Not Grell, not that jerk, not anyone in the managerial class, but me! _

*The next day*

I woke up really early. The sky was still dark. I stared at the clock on the wall and then went to get ready with a malicious grin on my face. If William didn't want me to come late, I would come a few hours early. What better way than to contradict his orders? Call me evil but I love thinking up ways to annoy people I hate. Grell had gone to the human world to reap a soul, so I was pretty much on my own. Then again… I'd hate to be in the same room as William with no one else there. I had roughly about two hours before I was even supposed to wake up, let alone get going to training academy. I put on a plain red t-shirt and jeans, grabbed my Walkman and walked outside.

I sat on the pier and turned the volume onto full. It was nice, watching the sun go up as I listened to music. It took my mind off unwanted things-and people- and helped me relax and get ready for the day. I thought I vaguely heard someone calling my name, but I couldn't hear anything with my head phones on.

Someone walked up and tapped me on the shoulder. As usual, it was my least favourite person. I took my headphones off.

"It's not sensible not to pay attention when someone is talking to you."

"Sorry, my music was too loud." I shrugged and set my headphones aside, put my walkman on pause and looked at William. Just looking at his face pissed me off.

"I could hear it from over here. You like rock music?"

"Yes. It's something I picked up from Grell."

"I see. I came to return these to you. You left so quickly yesterday that you forgot some of the things at your desk." He passed me a stack of books. "Please refrain from it happening again."

"Thanks"

"It's Thank you sir."

"Thank you sir" I repeated. He should be grateful I even said thanks. Prick. I set the books beside me and put my headphones back on. I turned my back on him and kept listening to music. I waited until I was sure he walked away. I made the books levitate and smash into the fence, imagining the fence was William's face. I quickly put them back before anyone saw. I certainly made a dent in the fence.

It was with great sorrow in my heart that I packed my things and walked up towards the library. I was seriously considering quitting being a grim reaper, but I wanted to prove everyone I knew wrong. I headed up the pathway to the library. Some of the other grim reapers I recognized from my class were also walking up the path behind me.

"Oh there's Leah… she's senior Sutcliff's sister." I heard one say

"I heard that it was just a typo. Besides, they look nothing alike."

"Ha, who cares if she's that gay jerk's sister? She's just a little girl! She'll never make it into the academy." A third, loud voice said. Did he just call my best friend a gay jerk? Did he just call me a little girl? I would make scrap meat out of this guy. I took a look at him. No glasses, a first for a guy. He had very messy brown hair and a sneer on his face. He didn't see that I was watching.

"Watch the way you talk about them. I hear Senior Sutcliff doesn't like when people talk about Leah."

Great. Now I was the talk of the entire grim reaper facility. Grell did know how to get attention, and he did it very well, but he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I hated the spotlight. I would be perfectly content being the wallflower of the class.

There was no lecture today, thankfully, but we went straight to the training arena to start combat training. Today, William didn't seem to pick on the way I used my weapons so much. I guessed I should be grateful for that. I paid more attention to the people around me. Many were wimps and could barely make a single cut on one of their dummies. Two of my dummies were in shreds already.

The boy without glasses who had insulted Grell was working pretty well, too. His targets and his dummies were all in shreds. As far as I knew, no one else possessed telekinesis, which meant that he was just a very good thrower. No one knew that I possessed telekinesis either. The only thing that gave me away was that my eyes would glow whenever I threw something. But no one would look in my eyes when I threw. I was perfectly fine. I hoped I would get paired with him so that I would kick his ass and teach him a lesson. No one insulted my best friend. Not even me.

Over all, there was not much competition in the class. I saw what William meant by 'only half would make it, and less than half of that would become real grim reapers.' A whistle blew and we stopped working. William walked down the stairs to the inside of the arena, holding a clipboard.

"The fighting pairs have been decided for next week's advancement. Please listen carefully for your name, as I won't repeat it twice…" He launched into a list of names. By the time he was halfway through the list, some of the other kids looked kinda panicky. I wondered who they'd been paired with. "Leah Hayes and Jordan Fox." He announced the last pair. The boy grinned at me. We were partners? I couldn't believe my luck. Not only would I get to punish him with my own hands, but I would also get to show how good of a fighter I was by beating out one of the major competitors. I was actually sure that William had put me and Jordan together on purpose to try to stop me getting to the next advancement. That wasn't going to happen though. I would become a grim reaper. That I knew.

Let the games begin.


	4. first battle exam

Chapter 4: my first battle exam.

The day of the battle came shortly. It seemed like a week flew by like it was nothing. I had Grell help me practice every day after school. We would jump up on the roof and he would attack me with his chainsaw. I managed to block everything by the third day. He didn't actually try to hit me or I would be a bunch of scrap meat. I felt great by the last day.

"I'm going to rule the world!" I yelled as I stood on top of the chimney with my arms spread out into the light. The best part of living in the shinigami world is that no one can hear anything when they sleep. We're usually all dead when we sleep. We stop breathing, and our heart stops working until we wake up the next day. Which means we're totally deaf when we sleep. Also a good thing, and a bad thing; we never dream. So nothing stopped me from climbing up onto the roof with Grell and yelling out into the darkness.

"You're going to do amazing, Lee-lee, I'm sure of it." Grell said as he put away his chainsaw. I smiled happily.

"I'm sure I am." I said happily. I might not even need my telekinesis powers after when Grell helped me.

"Remember, you won't be fighting in the arena, but on the rooftops of the fake houses. You can levitate the shingles; you can rip the chimneys off, you can make fire come out of the chimneys, you can throw your enemies… I'm sure you'll do fine. Oh, I'm so proud of you!" He said as he pulled me into a bear hug.

"Ow… Grell, I can't breathe…"

"Sorry, just excitement. I can't believe you've gotten this far. Soon you're going to be as much of a beautiful and attractive grim reaper like myself! I'm sure boys will just come falling for you. You'll be the mangosteen of all grim reapers!"

"Not sure what mangosteen means but okay." I said. Did he make that word up by himself? He sure was capable of it.

We walked to the library together despite what William said about Grell not being allowed to escort fellow grim reapers into the facility. I didn't care. He could go to hell and do everyone a favour.

"Good luck, Lee-lee. I have to go now. Kick his ass for me." Grell said.

"Will do. See you later!" I waved goodbye to Grell. I was one of the first people in the training room. After the class got assembled, we trudged down to the fake part of the world. They were basically uninhabited houses that were ruined and crumbling since the war of the green world and the blue world. We had total control of the green world now. The green world and the blue world were now the same place, in one big shinigami world. Everyone got along now, as this had been several hundred years ago. No one had really ever bothered to reconstruct this part of the world.

William walked in front of our group. Soon, this group would be half as small.

"You will all be fighting each other in the order I called your names yesterday. The rest of you, have a seat on those benches. So, Edward and Isaac, you two are up first."

I watched as two shaky looking grim reapers got up and jumped onto the roof.

"Begin!" William called. He took a seat on the other side of the roof, watching the battle intently. I kept a firm hold on my death scythes. I had been aware of dirty tricks like stealing someone else's death scythe so that they couldn't fight.

"Are you nervous?" Jordan walked up and asked me with a coy smile.

"Not in the least bit."

"I hope you don't have anything to hide in your cinematic record, because I'll be seeing it."

"Gosh, aren't we cocky?" I asked. "Even if you do get to see my cinematic record, you'll die just by looking at the events that happened." I said, smiling. "Don't the reapers that see the events of the souls sometimes feel the emotions of those who the cinematic record belongs to? The fear will choke you to death." I promised. "You will be lucky if you lose."

"Hmph. Nothing can scare me. We'll see…" Jordan walked away. I laughed. I watched as the cinematic record rolled out of Edward. Isaac helped Edward up and a light shone above him.

"Oh, awesome!" He said as he grabbed the sword out of the air and stroked it fondly. "Is this my new death scythe?"

"Yes. You can now consider yourself halfway there to becoming a grim reaper." William said. Those two went to sit down. Edward's cut healed immediately and his cinematic record stopped rolling.

"Next" William called.

The fight progressed like this. Most weak people were paired with strong ones, so the competition wasn't real. I began to get slightly nervous, the way I usually did as my turn neared.

"Next, Leah and Jordan." William called. Both of us walked forwards and jumped onto the roof.

"Begin!" William called.

Jordan ran forwards with a feint and a strike to the face. It was a good move, but I was ready for it. Every time his axe moved to strike me, I used telekinesis to make it move slightly away from me so that he missed every time. I kicked him into a wall. He got up and charged again. I flipped over his head and tried to stab his back. He countered and flung one axe out of my hand. I retrieved it quickly and we kept fighting.

I was trying not to use telekinesis as much as I could because he might file a cheat. All grim reapers had telekinesis powers. Only a select few could actually manifest them and use them. It was possible to learn, but it was very, very difficult. Those grim reapers that could use telekinesis were very revered in the shinigami society, so I figured William would cut me some slack.

He seemed to be getting angry that he couldn't cut me as quickly as he thought. His movements began to get wilder and faster. Instead of being orderly, he began to get unpredictable and I found myself more on the defensive side than on the attack side. I knew that you could score big if you attacked more often, but you could fall seriously as well. And I would make him fall.

"What's wrong, can't hit me?" He asked. He had a crazy looking light in his eyes. I took a step back. It wasn't like my eyes that glowed like crazy. My eyes were bright. His eyes were still the normal color, but they looked like the eyes of a madman. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong with him. William seemed to see it too. His attacks began to get so fast that I could barely defend myself. A black aura surrounded him. William stood up.

"That's enough! Both of you, stop fighting!" He called. Nothing happened. He got his death scythe to try to restrain Jordan, but his scythe clanged against an unseen force field. I was trapped. He got out his cell phone and began calling the managerial class. What would happen when they came? Would both of us be kicked out? Who knew? I knew that I didn't want to look like a helpless princess who needed rescuing. I was going to kick his ass without anyone's help. Something inside me told me that if I cut him hard enough, the darkness would leak out as well as his cinematic record and he would turn back to normal.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, they were glowing. I felt the wind rush through me. I raised my arms. The wind got faster. Shingles got blown off the roofs in a tornado around me. I ripped the chimney off the roof and flung it at him, hitting him square in the chest and throwing him into the wall. I raised my hand and a pillar of fire came out of the chimney. I made it turn into a dozen flaming arrows.

The whirlwind of debris flying around me got stronger as I added pieces of wood and metal from other ruined houses to the tornado. I flung it in all directions. I was able to see where the force field was and how far it extended by the amount of stuff that stuck to the edges. He ran towards me. I made a wall of rubble and slowly walked towards him. I found two sticks of wood and two pieces of metal and stuck them together, pretending they were my death scythes. As planned, he flung them out of my hands. He thought I was no longer armed and advanced on me. Apparently everyone else thought so too, as they screamed out warnings to me. I just smiled. Just the right time… I waited until he raised his arms to strike. Now!

I ran forwards as fast as I could and I made several deep x shaped cuts to his chest with my real death scythes. The force field disappeared and all the debris clattered to the ground. His cinematic record rolled out of his body. I didn't care to watch it, as I was so tired. I sat down on the roof, completely exhausted. A light shone above me.

I watched as my new death scythe took place. It looked huge. What materialized was an enormous traditional death scythe that was a pure bone white color with a skull joining the place where the blade and the hilt met. It was like the death scythe of the last legendary shinigami. It fit perfectly in my hands. I grinned. It was awesome.

The managerial class came running up. There were several people there. The guy's cinematic record was still rolling. He looked out cold. One of them knelt beside him.

"I thought so… he used a dark spell meant to enhance combat prowess. What a stupid thing to do. It seems that the spell took control of his body." He said before turning his attention to me. "You did well, miss. You fought very well against the spell influence. We haven't had a grim reaper that could use telekinesis in a while. I'm glad to say you passed. You're halfway there to your goal."

"Thank you." I said. I walked over with my new death scythe to the group of people who had won. I was halfway there. Soon I would be a real grim reaper. I couldn't wait.


	5. the armonica

Chapter 5: the armonica

"Lee-lee!" Grell came running over. "I heard what happened, it's absolutely awful. Whoa… your death scythe's awesome! Not as good as my chainsaw of course, but it suits you nicely…" Grell kept babbling for about half an hour before I could calm him down enough to tell him everything that had happened.

"Well, I'm glad you made it. Go with the rest of your group. We'll talk later." Grell said. "I have to go do some work."

"Work? Is it trying to get some pictures of that demon?" I asked.

"Yes. Don't tell anyone. I'll even let you look at the pictures."

"Sure…" I laughed. I quickly ran over to join my group. My death scythe shrunk into a bracelet with a skull charm on it. I put it on. I ran over to join my group where William and the rest of the managerial class were standing.

"You will be put into pairs with one of the people from the managerial class. They will be your instructors on how to use your death scythe and they will train you on how to become a grim reaper. You are required to come on schedule on the days that you and your trainer will meet in the arena. Isaac, you will be training with senior Whitewood, Connor, you will be training with senior Evans, Ronald, you will be training with senior Black, Leah, you will be training with me."

_You've got to be kidding me? Gah… this will be a nightmare! _I resisted the strong urge to make something fly at William. Why wouldn't he leave me alone? Why couldn't I be partnered with someone else? Argh! It seemed like he didn't want to let me out of his sight just so that he would annoy me on purpose. I was so angry I didn't pay attention to the rest of his speech. Who cared what he had to say anyway. Finally, he finished and everyone was allowed to go home.

"Miss Hayes" I stiffened.

"Yes"

"One of the managers would like to see you in the library." William said as he walked past me. "I do believe it would be wise not to keep him waiting. He's in that room."

I walked soundlessly to the door and tapped on it.

"Come in!" The voice called. I opened the door. A strange sound greeted me. It sounded like glasses filled with water. The girl looked up from the strange instrument she was playing. A girl? In the managerial class?

"You'll have to forgive me." She said as she got up. "I love the Armonica so much I have to practice it all the time."

"The armonica…?" I asked, looking at the strange instrument. Somehow it looked familiar to me.

"Yes… I've been playing it ever since I was little. They say it has the voice of the angels. I disagree. I believe it has a voice prettier than the angels. Please have a seat, Leah." I sat.

"The reason I wanted to you… I hear you displayed some amazing telekinetic abilities today."

"Yeah…"

"How long have you been able to practice telekinesis?"

"I was born with that ability. I've always been able to do it. Is my telekinesis dangerous?" I asked nervously, afraid she'd say I was unable to continue my grim reaper studies.

"No, not at all. I believe it's a great asset to us. We just need to be sure that you can control your powers so as not to cause any problems when you go to the human world. I need to go over a few things with you before you become a grim reaper. You absolutely cannot use telekinesis to reap someone's soul. You can only use it to defend yourself of some other member. I want you to remember that. With added power comes added responsibility. You should be able to manage what others cannot. Do you understand?"

"I do…"

She looked like she was about to say something else, but someone stuck their head through the door.

"Miss Black, you need to come to the office right away!"

"I'll be right there!" She said. "Leah, can you want there for a minute? You can look at the armonica if you want as long as you don't break anything." She said as she dashed out the door.

I took a seat by the armonica. I tried doing what she did, but it sounded like a cat dying. I realized I wasn't pressing the pedal that made the armonica turn. I began pressing it. I noticed the bowl of water and dipped my fingers into it. I played a single childhood song hat I knew. I had played the piano so it wasn't so hard for me to understand what went where. It was much slower than the song actually was, because I couldn't play quickly on an instrument like this, and because the lingering echo made it so that if I played a note that didn't sound well with the first one, the entire piece would sound off. To me it sounded depressing and lonely.

_It has the voice of the angels… _I heard her talk again. It did have the voice of the angels. I kept playing. I didn't want to stop. I heard footsteps and out of the corner of my eye, I saw William stop. I realized I didn't shut the door and everyone could hear the sound. Too late now.

A memory flashed into my head. My mom had played this instrument. It had gone out of fashion roughly about a hundred years ago, but she had still loved playing it. I had wanted to learn how to play, but the armonica that had been in our house had gotten smashed to bits. No spell could repair it, sadly. Apparently it was a brand new invention in the human world, the human inventor being Benjamin Franklin. I couldn't remember which grim reaper had actually made the armonica, but it had existed for roughly one hundred and fifty years now in our world. I ran to shut the door before he could turn and see that it was me playing. I wouldn't touch the armonica again. It scared the crap out of me. Why did I want to play it so much? Talk about a cursed instrument… I slipped out the door and out of sight, not knowing that it would soon cost me for playing it, in a very bad way.


	6. pain

Chapter 6: pain

I walked down the hallway and into the library room with the reception desk. I was starting to feel dizzy, so I decided I was going to walk home as quickly as possible. I didn't have any training until next Tuesday so I was good. If I wasn't feeling well after today's events, I would have the weekend to get better.

The closer I got to my house, the more I began to feel something wasn't right. It felt like my brain was working just fine, but my body wasn't obeying its commands properly. I barely managed to stumble into my room before I fell sideways onto the floor. By the way I couldn't get up; I decided that I was going to be here for a while. It scared me half to death as well. I didn't know what could have caused this or what was wrong with me. My head pounded like someone was repeatedly hitting it with a brick.

The phone rang, but my body felt like lead. It rang repeatedly, but I couldn't even move to pick it up. I felt a disgusting taste in my mouth, like something rusty. I couldn't even force my eyes to open. This was getting scarier and scarier. This was just like the way my mom had died when I was young.

I was beginning to have strange memories, memories of when I was younger. This was the darkest part of my cinematic record. I had actually seen my cinematic record once in my life when I was five because I had accidentally cut myself on my dad's death scythe because it looked fun to play with. Usually, all strings of film in a cinematic record glow white. In mine, there were a few strands that actually gave off a black aura.

The first memory was one from my very early childhood. There were very few memories that I had from here. It was me and Grell as little kids, he was about six and I was five, playing.

"_Hey lee-lee"_

"_Yeah"_

"_Do you think all this will ever be over?"_

"_I dunno… I don't wanna think about it."_

Far away, we could hear people yelling. My mom kept on glancing nervously out the window. Grell's parents also stared out the window, looking worried. Now that I thought about it, I had never paid attention to the fact that the door to our house was made out of thick steel, like the door to a vault. My dad's old carriage stood parked outside. We screamed as it burst into flames.

There was another memory I didn't have any words for, it was so horrible. There was another one which wasn't so bad.

Grell and I were standing on a hill, overlooking many ruined houses. We were standing in front of what looked like a small hastily made cemetery. Both of our families were here. A little over to the side were several other places that looked like ours. The entire hillside was covered in family graves. Crudely made wooden crosses marked their places. There were no names, as we couldn't find anything to write with. At this point, it didn't matter. In this memory, we were older. He was about fifteen, and I was fourteen. Grell gazed down bleakly at the graves.

"_Leah… I think I'm going to become a grim reaper."_

"_A grim reaper?"_

"_Yeah. So I can protect you. So you don't have to be sad anymore."_

Everything went black just as I heard familiar footsteps coming up the stairs.

I got jolted back into reality. I shot up so fast I saw stars. It was dark.

"Leah?" I turned to see Grell sitting beside my bed. For once he wasn't smiling. His face was bone pale. I hadn't seen him this serious since that day. The day almost everyone in our district died. I had almost died the same way. He looked scared. I realized I was in the infirmary, and that I could move normally again. My head still hurt like hell, however.

"Ow… what happened to me?" I asked.

"I don't know… no one does. They said it was some kind of poison but I don't think it was." Grell looked down. "You scared me to death, Leah. Do you remember how…"

"How our parents died? Yeah, I do. I'm sorry." I said quietly.

"Well, the good thing is that you're alive." Grell looked around. "I don't think anyone's around now. Do you feel better?"

"I will once I'm out of this place."

"Then let's go!"

He pulled me out of the infirmary bed and we walked outside to see Grell's old red Harley motorcycle which he never rode anymore because nearly everything was within walking distance. I had no idea why he'd even bought the thing in the first place. He had said it looked amazing because it was new and it was red. Motorcycles and cars weren't very popular here, only for people who had to get from the blue city to the green city and back every day.

"What day is it?" I wondered.

"It's Monday." Grell said.

"Already? I was out for that long?"

"Three days" He said as we rode down the streets, which were mercifully empty.

"At least it wasn't longer. This way I get the rest of the evening to recover and go back to shinigami training."

"Don't push yourself too hard, Lee-lee. I'll go talk to William about it, you don't have to."

"I want to. Besides when am I going to finish my training if it's not now?"

"Suit yourself…" Grell sighed. He parked the motorcycle at the back of the house.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah, see you later." Grell said as I walked into my house and fell onto my bed. God, what a nightmare. I wondered what could have caused this. I didn't really touch anything, and I didn't really eat anything either that could have caused it. The water could have been poisoned, but since the girl had been playing on the armonica as well, that couldn't have been it… could it? Could the poison have been in the water? Too tired to think about it any longer, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next day for my shinigami training. I had put my uniform in the dryer. William would probably scold me for not wearing the uniform but I didn't care. I put on black army pants and a red t-shirt with a black skull outline on it. My skull bracelet/death scythe jingled on my wrist. I didn't bother brushing my hair and just put it into a high ponytail. I walked outside. It looked like it was about to rain any second, and I could smell it, so I ran as fast as I could to the library.

William was already waiting.

"Good morning" He said.

"Good morning" I replied carefully. Something looked different about him. I had no idea what it was. Something had changed, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He still looked exactly as he did.

"Shall we get started?" He asked.

"Why not…" I tapped my silver bracelet twice and it spiralled into the bone white death scythe that I favoured so much. He had me attack him several times so that I could get the hang of swinging the thing around. After all, it was huge. It was bigger than I was. The rain drummed lightly on the roof of the arena. I thought I'd love attacking him with my death scythe, but for some reason, I didn't.

We practiced for a little bit, and then William let me leave.

"Don't forget that our next training session is on Thursday."

"Yeah…" I turned away.

"And Leah…" I froze in place. That was the first time he had ever called me by my first name.

"I'm glad you're all right." He told me


	7. answers that are not yet given

Chapter 7: answers that are not yet given

I was so surprised that I was speechless. Should I say thanks or…? So instead I left without another word. It might have been rude of me, but I couldn't make sense of it. Why was he glad I was okay? Didn't he hate me? I could see no possible inconvenience for him if I hadn't survived the poison. My death scythe turned back into a bracelet and I walked out into the rain. It was a nice light rain. Most of it had already stopped, so I wasn't too wet by the time I got home. When my hair was completely straight, as it was when it was wet, it was roughly about knee length. I combed it out and then dried it. I had a very big, picturesque window in my room, from which I could see the library and the pier.

I stared out my window into the rain, watching as it spattered the windowpane. I didn't understand it any more than I understood him. Why would he even care? Sure, it wouldn't look too good from his point of view if the grim reaper he was training suddenly died, but I saw no reason for him to tell me that. He had never called me 'Leah'. It was always 'Miss Hayes'. Why the sudden change? He hadn't even said a word about me not wearing my uniform.

Another reason why William annoyed me was because I couldn't tell what he was thinking, figuratively. I was always very good at perception. I could tell what people were thinking based on their facial expressions, and I could tell what they were most likely going to do next. Though William followed his schedule 24/7, his face was always completely emotionless. At first, when I had seen his expression, I was so surprised I couldn't tell what the emotion was. That was the huge difference I had seen today. He was actually showing some sort of emotion besides the usual disdain, indifference and whatever.

Now that I thought about it, the expression on his face had resembled Grell's when we had gone to our family grave for the first time. Our parents had been best friends, as had our grandparents. So it was natural to bury them in one huge family cemetery. I had cried my eyes out. Grell didn't cry. He looked more like he didn't know what to feel. His expression had been somewhere in between sadness and wistfulness. Not completely sad… yet not really any other emotion either.

Speaking of family graves, that was a good idea. I would go visit them later, once the rain cleared. Fortunately, the rain wasn't long, and I managed to go outside closer to the evening with a large bouquet of red roses. I took Grell's Harley up to the hillside, as it was pretty far from here. Yes, I did know how to ride a motorcycle. It wasn't that hard. I took the bouquet of roses and several name plates. I had memorized who was where and had made little tablets for them. It didn't seem fair not to have a namesake.

I walked up to the top of the hillside and laid a single flower on each grave, laying three on my parents' graves, and three on the graves of Grell's parents. I then hammered the tablets into place onto the ground. The sky cleared slowly, and beams of sunlight shot in between the clouds. It was very nice. I stood there, looking down onto the ruined houses. I could still tell which one had been my family's house, and Grell's family had lived right across from us.

A light breeze made the trees sway from side to side. I heard a faint rustling noise and looked over my shoulder. Far on the other side of the graves, I could see an outline of a figure standing in front of a smaller group of graves. I strained to see the person, but I could only make out their outline. I grabbed my red thin rimmed glasses from the inside of my pocket, put them on and glanced inconspicuously at the person.

This time I saw the outline of his hair and familiar square glasses. It was William. I hadn't expected him to be here. Then again, it wasn't so surprising considering the fact that almost everyone in our district had died. I didn't know William had lived here as well. Then again, there was barely anything I knew about William.

Maybe he wasn't really as uptight as he acted. William smiling, let alone laughing was unheard of and never thought of. Could I change that? I might be willing to try. If he didn't hate me like I thought… maybe he wasn't really so bad? He could be an entirely different person and I wouldn't know.

From that point, I decided to be a little different. I would no longer get mad at him with anything he said. I would get him to trust me. Who knew? Maybe we would end up being friends?

*** William's POV, third person perspective***

He watched as Leah got on the red motorcycle and drove away. He picked up his death scythe from the ground and walked out of the cemetery. He hadn't really paid much attention to anyone before, except to tell them off when they did something wrong and in Grell's case, hit him over the head.

He had no idea why he cared specifically about Leah, and only about Leah. She had grown up with that piece of garbage, and they were as close as family. Her personality wasn't as bad as Grell's was, but she was still like him. She loved red, which was his least favourite color. She was almost never on time and had distaste for rules and schedules. She would talk back to superiors and hated taking orders. She wouldn't wear glasses though it was a necessary part to being a shinigami. Every shinigami had to wear glasses. She had refused point blank. She was stupidly emotional about everything and one could read her expression like an open book. One should not take their emotions into their job. It was a waste of time.

Everyone else in his life had seemed to be cast in a dark shadow. However, since the first time he'd met her, it felt like she had a spotlight trailing on her, forcing him to look at her. He'd known someone was out to kill her since the training incident where she had fought her partner, and it was his duty to protect her. He should be disgusted with her, like he was with Grell and Ronald and most of the other shinigami who didn't know their places. For some reason, he wasn't.

_I couldn't care less about that woman_. He told himself firmly. _The only reason I am happy she is alive is that it would affect my job position if the one person I was training suddenly died. She matters no more to me than anyone else._

He walked into his house and snapped the door shut.


	8. throne of skulls

Chapter 8: throne of skulls

*Back to Leah's POV, first person perspective*

Thursday came quickly, as did my stupid appointment. Apparently I had actually broken my leg when I was fighting Jordan and I hadn't noticed. I had just brushed off the pain. I thought it was just a sprain. Death gods healed really quickly, so it had mended within a few days. While I was in the infirmary the people there had noticed my recently broken leg. They sent me a call yesterday. Apparently it might not have set correctly… blah, blah, blah… I was sure it was fine because I could walk perfectly normally now. I tried to delay the appointment as much as possible. Actually, it had set crookedly, so by the time they fixed it and allowed me to leave, I was half an hour late for training with William.

I made my way up to the library, stepping gingerly on my newly healed foot. I could move fine with it, but I didn't really like the idea of having to run with it… Especially with all the things William put me through in the afternoon like running, jumping, aerial jumps, obstacle courses… any aerial trick or fighting trick you could name, he'd make me do it. Oh man… William was going to chew me out today… not only was I seriously late, I had also forgotten my uniform.

I found him sitting on a bench by the training area reading a book, his death scythe propped up on the wall beside him. He seemed to be concentrating on the book.

"What are you reading?"

I made him jump so high that his glasses almost fell off his face. He sighed as he pushed them back on his face.

"Never you mind…"

"Why, is it something embarrassing?"

"No!"

He stood up and looked like he was going to get mad, but when he saw me laughing, he stopped.

"I'm sorry…." I said in between giggles. "It was just a joke…" William just sighed and shook his head. I figured that meant I was off the hook until he said;

"By the way, how long were you going to make me wait for you? I thought we'd agreed that you would come every day on time."

"Sorry… I had an appointment… they had to re-break my leg and fix it a second time…"

"You're not wearing your uniform today either. Is this a bad habit now?"

"Will you get off my case?" I asked. "I came here as fast as I could. If I had stopped to take my uniform, you would be sitting here waiting for another hour."

"That's strike two" He said and turned to head towards the arena.

"Thanks for being so nice." I muttered sarcastically. He didn't seem to have heard me. He snapped his fingers and the book vanished. He picked up his death scythe.

"Was that the to-die list?" I asked.

"Yes. There are going to be quite a few deaths tonight in the human world. I'm not only to reap the souls of the dead, but I am also to kill the murderers. What a tiresome job… I'll have to work overtime again."

"Can't I come with you?"

"I don't think so, Leah. These are murderers. You are an inexperienced grim reaper who can barely swing her own weapon without overdoing the damage. They'll kill you before you can kill them."

I wanted to argue, but William was right. The last time I had swung my death scythe, I was supposed to only destroy one crate. I had blown up the entire pile. I seriously needed help on learning how to use this thing. However, William could only do so much, as he didn't know how to use it. The last shinigami who had used a death scythe had retired nearly one hundred years ago.

Another thing I forgot to mention. Grim reapers are immortal. We can't die of old age or sickness. We stop aging once we reach 25. Our souls are stuck forever inside our bodies. The only way we can die is by dying in combat, getting poisoned, run through with someone else's death scythe… etc. I think we do have a lifespan, but no one's ever lived past 3 000 years because that's when we were first created. Basically, we can only die through murder, but that's it because technically we're all dead. To kill a grim reaper isn't really to kill them. It's just to destroy a soul.

It would be really nice if I could talk to this guy to get him to teach me how to control my stupid death scythe. Because otherwise, I wouldn't get the position if I couldn't get used to wielding something twice my size in time for my final examination, which consisted of teaching a small group of grim reapers. Then I would be sent down into the world of the humans, in charge of reaping the soul of one particular human and deciding whether or not to go through with the death.

We practiced for a little and then I went home. I froze as I heard footsteps behind me…

"Hee hee hee, if it isn't the little lady." A creepy voice said from behind me. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack… if that was even possible.

"Whoa… who are you?"

"Just call me the Undertaker." The guy had long silver hair that completely covered his eyes, a long black coat with floppy sleeves, long black fingernails and a black hat.

"Under…taker?" That sounded familiar. Oh! It was him. The guy who had helped William, Grell and that demon get the angel out of the library of Cinematic records. The guy who'd been the last legendary grim reaper. Just my luck!

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I came to pick up a few cinematic records I wanted to look at… and talk to you. It's interesting that the next traditional death scythe holder would be a pretty woman like you… May I see your bracelet?"

I unclipped it and gave it to him cautiously. He examined it.

"Hmm… most amazing… What you have here is not only a traditional death scythe… the silver will work with your mind and bend into whatever shape you want your death scythe to take on. However, its original shape is the most practical."

"You mean it can change into any weapon?" I asked. In response to my question, the Undertaker moved his hand over the bracelet and my death scythe changed into a machine gun. "That's so cool!"

"Indeed it is. To my understanding you're not doing too well with handling your death scythe, are you?" Seeing the expression on my face, he hastily added; "Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Especially since this thing is nearly twice your weight. Traditional death scythes are the hardest to use. Would you like me to help teach you how to use it properly?"

"Yes please" I said. This was more than I could hope for.

"I believe you'll make a very nice grim reaper, milady. However, there are quite a few things you don't know yet." He said as we walked straight back into the arena. He gave me back my death scythe in its original form. "You need to remember that whenever you take a soul to treat it with extreme care. With great power you gradually fail to understand the importance of things that cannot be recovered."

"I understand…"

He showed me how to hold it so that my wrist was bent slightly as I held it to give it more speed and accuracy.

"Remember, this isn't a sword. If you swing it as hard as you swing a sword, you will destroy everything in your path, and that isn't a good idea."

"Right." I said as I slashed a training dummy right in half. Soon, with the Undertaker's training, I got better at using my death scythe. Slowly I progressed from destroying the entire pile of crates to five, to two and then only to one. I managed to swing it and throw it like a boomerang. It zoomed straight into my head. I created a bow and arrow out of my death scythe and managed to shoot a bull's-eye with it. Undertaker smiled creepily and nodded in approval.

"You're improving very well." He said as my bow changed back into my skull bracelet. "Remember that you have great power, Leah Hayes. Much more power than any grim reaper could ever dream of."

"What do you mean?" I asked as he began to walk away.

"Hmm? Do you really want to find out?" He asked as he walked back towards me.

"Sit down." He said.

He gave me a stack of cinematic records. He put one more on top of the pile. It had a strange cover, like it was made of molten gold.

"Go ahead. Touch it." He said. I stuck my hand straight through the golden cover like it was air. Instantly, the book opened. There was only one page, but things seemed to be moving. I noticed that the ink was tracing a picture.

It was a young girl sitting on a throne made entirely out of skulls. A traditional death scythe was draped on her lap. Around her were painted pictures of death. The girl had short pixie cut hair and a malicious light in her eyes that made you feel like she was just waiting to drop an ice cube down your shirt or something worse.

"What is this? Who is this?" I asked the undertaker.

"This is the golden oracle. It will tell you your past and your future. That first painting is your past."

'I've never sat on a throne of skulls in my life. My hair was only ever that short when I was ten."

"It's not what actually happened, but images that you have to interpret. That throne of skulls is composed of people who died. There are thirty five skulls in that throne. You've seen thirty five people die. That's more death than half the population of actual grim reapers have seen happen at a time. That's where the background comes in. I'm guessing you looked like this when you were ten. That was the age where all this happened."

"Hold up… there was good stuff in my life as well. Where did all that go?"

"The golden oracle only shows the biggest and the bitterest parts of your past. Touch the cover again."

I hesitated but I touched the painting. The lines began to reform and paint a new painting. It looked like a war. Smoke came off the buildings. Some people in black uniforms lay dead on the streets. Two crowds faced each other, all armed with death scythes.

"Is this some kind of civil war?" I wondered.

"Look closer at the tattoos of the people on the right." Undertaker said. It looked like \_

\_ \

"I've seen that symbol before…"

"It's up to you to figure out what it means. Goodbye, little lady. I will see you perhaps again."

He left, leaving me feeling extremely confused. Why did he show me my future? Sure, I'd seen tons of people die, but what was so special about that? Why did it make me more powerful than all the other shinigami? Sure, I possessed telekinesis powers, but so did everyone else. They just didn't know how to use them.

What did all of this mean?


	9. rain is happiness

Chapter 9: rain is happiness

It was a dark day outside. The sky was veiled entirely in clouds like it was going to rain at any second. I noted that it was raining more often than usual in the shinigami world. I thought nothing of it, however. I sat at my desk; feeling like this was going to be a very boring day. I didn't even have Grell to talk to because he'd gone to the human world again. He'd told me that killings were becoming quite common in the human world. That didn't seem like a good idea. As far as what I've been told, humans are easily influenced by others and their decisions change quickly, making them easy to manipulate. I've also heard they succumb to evil deeds much more often than we death gods do.

I felt like going to visit the cemetery, but it looked like it was going to rain, so I stayed inside for a few hours. The sky still looked dark and cloudy, but it didn't look like it was about to rain any time soon, so I took the red Harley over to the hillside.

I sat on the grass overlooking the hillside. I always had that same bleak feeling every time I visited the family cemetery. It felt so lonely, knowing that I was the last living member of my family.

I looked over to see the familiar figure still standing on the hillside. William visited that particular family cemetery quite a lot. If I wasn't mistaken, he probably went every day at the same time. I went whenever I had time. I hated schedules so I never went at a specific time. I stood up and walked towards him. I knew that it was probably not a good idea, but he looked so sad and lonely that I just had to talk to him.

"Hey"

"Hello Leah. May I ask what you're doing here?"

"My family is here too, you know." I said. "I was looking for you earlier. I wanted to give you the finished documents you asked for on Tuesday."

A tiny drip of rain splashed down on the ground. We looked up.

"It looks like it's going to rain. Shall we get going?"

"Why not?"

Both of us left the cemetery quickly. I got the documents out of the small black bag which I always carry with me and gave it to him. He blinked twice at the huge stack of paper.

"This is nearly twice as much information than what I asked you for."

"There was a lot of stuff I'd like you to look at." I said, tapping the front of the huge paper.

"Thank you… now-" He didn't get to finish his sentence. The rain started so fast that I thought someone had dumped a bucket of water on us. It was pouring buckets, the rain making splashing noises on the paved road.

"Ah hell! I can't drive in this weather!" I said as I pulled my coat over my head. Now I was really sorry I didn't bring a waterproof jacket. I was getting soaked and I had nowhere to go.

"My house isn't too far from here. Would you like to stay until the rain stops?"

"Sure"

Both of us practically ran down the street until we got to a faded blue house. William shut the door quickly behind us. Both of us were soaking wet. We took off our coats and put them on the coat hanger. William's hair had been plastered to his face. Normally, it was neatly combed, but now his wet bangs hung limply in his eyes. He brushed them away with annoyance.

We sat down on the couch. I spied a bunch of towels nearby. I grabbed one and threw it over William's head.

"You are soaking wet." I said. I was smiling because he looked so different. I pulled the towel over his eyes and dried his hair. He didn't seem to mind.

"I haven't seen it rain this much since a long time ago." He noted as the rain pounded on the windows. He looked so cute with his wet hair. He took his glasses off and dried the lenses, and then put them back on his face. I laughed when he nearly poked himself in the eye.

The rain lasted roughly about two hours. It was strange, but I felt comfortable. I got to know William as a person and not as my shinigami superior. We talked quite a bit, and after a few hours, a small smile was beginning to form on William's face. He looked nice when he smiled. I took myself as lucky because no one had ever seen William smile before.

The last of the rain pattered on the windows. I looked up and stood up from the couch.

"I should probably get going." I said.

"Stay... I mean… I'd like it if you stayed. I could use the company." William said, looking away. I smiled and sat back down.

We talked for a while. Looking back, I probably spent roughly five hours at his place. I didn't regret a single minute of it. It was nice, getting to know him. I found myself liking his personality more and more. I found that every time I thought about him, my face would grow hot. Did I seriously like this guy? If I did, was it okay? William was something like my boss. I was just a lowly grim reaper. But then again, many things were different here. Job related problems aside, it would be a huge problem just figuring out if he liked me or not.

If he didn't like me and I let it slip that I liked him… well I'd be in a lot of trouble. I'd probably not come out of my house for like three months. I couldn't help myself; I just had to think about him all the time. It wasn't something that I could control.

When people saw William, they didn't see much behind his face. They didn't see the person he really was. He wasn't that much different from the way he was at work, but the difference was significant enough to make me start to like him. I felt really lucky that I could see him for who he was.

And now what?

I couldn't wait for my training.


	10. final exam

Chapter 10: final exam

As winter drew on, my final exam date got closer. They had given me a different uniform, a long grey sweater with black pants. I liked it much better than the last one. My partner would only be decided after I began to teach the class. Just yesterday, I had chosen a pair of glasses. They were one of the only kinds they made specifically. They were square shaped and wire rimmed and the prescription was almost zero. Even when the prescription was so low, the glasses gave me a headache if I wore them for too long. I wasn't used to wearing glasses.

Apparently, shinigami glasses had a double purpose. I noticed that if I read the to-die list, I had been given one of my own books yesterday; the name of the soul I was supposed to take would show up over their heads in the lenses of my glasses to make sure that I didn't confuse them with someone else.

I walked to the library. I could already hear the noise in the classroom before I even walked inside. I hesitated.

"Are you ready for the beginning of your exam?" William asked as he walked up beside me.

"Hell, I'll never be ready. I guess this is as close as it gets."

"Good luck."

"Thank you… I'll need it." I said as I walked through the door, trying not to blush as I looked at him. Thankfully it seemed to work. The class fell silent as I walked in front of the desk.

"Good afternoon everyone. My name is Leah Hayes. You may address me as Miss Hayes or Senior Hayes. You are all here to become grim reapers. Let me tell you first hand that it's going to be difficult. There are more challenges than you can possibly think of." I looked at the class while I talked. I saw two girls, which was a first.

"You will be given temporary death scythes. You are to use these as your weapons until after your first exam when your true weapon will be chosen. If any of you cheat during your exam, you will fail automatically and will not be allowed to try and become a grim reaper again."

I snapped my fingers and the projector came on.

"Now, let's start with the first lesson. Grim reapers use death scythes to harvest the souls of the living and send them to either heaven or hell…"

So far, the class was going good. Everyone seemed to be paying attention, but occasional talking got me very mad. As I paid no attention to when everyone talked, the buzz got louder. I turned around and glared at the class. They all fell silent when they saw my glowing eyes.

"That's enough! Do I need to cast a spell that will sew your lips shut?" I snapped. I didn't know whether such a spell even existed, but it seemed to do the trick. "You are going to be disciplined in my class. And if you think I'm strict, just wait until you meet your real instructor." No one dared to talk when William was there, even if he hadn't said anything to them about not talking. It was rather quite funny.

That seemed to shut them up quite nicely. The class was completely silent like their lips had been sewn shut. Even though I hadn't done anything to them. I tried to explain clearly. I was satisfied that no one raised their hands when I asked if there were any questions. I opened the training room, gave them their pickaxes and made them go train.

"How did it go?" William asked.

"It's hard. I don't know how you do this every day." I said, taking off my glasses and putting them in my pocket.

"The second part of your training is going to be a lot worse. I'll take over from here. You need to go into the library and get assigned to the soul you're supposed to take, and your partner."

We switched places and I walked off into the library.

Two people were already waiting for me. One I recognized as the girl who had been playing the armonica, and an unfamiliar grim reaper.

"Oh, hello Leah. May I introduce you to your partner? Ronald, this is Leah Hayes. Leah, this is Ronald Knox."

"Heya" He said, smiling. I returned the smile. He didn't seem to be too bad. At least I didn't get stuck with an idiot. He wore thick square glasses like William and had orange hair with black roots showing. I looked to see that he had a lawnmower as a death scythe. Seriously? A lawn mower? Maybe I was wrong about this guy not being an idiot. I walked to stand beside him.

"Get out your to-die lists, please." Both of us took out our to die books. I looked at the very first name that had been written in there.

"Alexander Dawson?" I wondered. "Is this the soul we're supposed to take?"

"Yes. You'll stay in the human world for a few days and decide whether you want to kill that soul or not. It has to be a unanimous decision between you two. One of you can't kill if the other disagrees."

"The time of death is set, though." I said.

"It can be altered if you decide not to kill him."

"So we have until Wednesday to kill him if we decide to?"

"That's correct. Now, I'll escort you both personally into the human world. I'd suggest keeping out of human sight unless you have to. Your appearances are unusual for humans. You can pass for humans, but I wouldn't try it." She said. We walked to the pier. She leant forwards and touched the water with her hand. Instantly it shimmered and turned into a different image. "Jump in."

"You can't be serious."

"I am. Jump in. Good luck, you two."

I wasted no time and jumped into the water. I felt the water rush over my head, but I wasn't wet at all. Everything went black around me, and I fell out of the sky in a different place. I landed on the roofs of a crowded street. I guessed it must be London. I put my glasses over my eyes again. I looked around for Ronald but he wasn't there. He must have hesitated to jump in the portal.

I waited for a few more minutes. No one came at all. Was I alone here? Where did he go? I stood up and looked around. No one could see me on the high rooftops. I guessed this was London. I waited roughly an hour on the rooftops for Ronald. I couldn't see him anywhere.

I stood up quickly. Ah hell! How could I have been so stupid? I'd completely forgotten to ask how to get _back_ into the shinigami world!


	11. trapped

Chapter 11: trapped

I was stuck in a world of unfamiliar humans and possibly demons and who knows what else, completely alone, with no way of knowing how to get back into my world. So I did the natural thing. I began to panic. I forced myself to calm down before anyone could see me. A girl dressed like a boy sitting on a rooftop that is completely impossible for a human to get up to.

I told myself to calm down. The first thing I needed to do was go find Ronald. He'd probably been teleported to a different place by accident. I hid up on the highest building roof. I would wait until nightfall when everyone was asleep. Most likely, if Ronald wasn't a complete imbecile, he wouldn't make it hard for me to find him and even try to find me himself. I just hoped he hadn't gone and interacted with the humans. That was one thing we weren't supposed to do.

Let me tell you, waiting ten hours on a rooftop with nothing but your panicky thoughts isn't a very nice feeling. I could hardly wait until sunset. Finally, the streets got less crowded. I was free to move around. I jumped down from the house roof and began running down the streets. I got out my to die list and flipped to the very back where all the spells were.

Tracking spell… tracking spell… Oh, there it was.

I clapped my hands together and recited the incantation. I saw red footsteps on the roofs. If I followed them, it would lead me to Ronald. The brighter the footsteps were, the fresher the trail. I jumped back onto the roof and began following the tracks, running as fast as I could, jumping from building to building. Finally, I saw a flash of orange hair.

"Oh… now what am I going to do…?" Ronald was walking along the street, mumbling to himself. He looked tired. He was following a set of green glowing footsteps. Probably my own. "These footsteps go in an entire circle…"

"Hey!" I yelled. Ronald looked up just as I jumped from the roof and landed beside him. "Where were you?" I asked. "I was looking everywhere for you."

"So was I. I think the portal dropped me in the wrong place."

"All right. Let's not waste any time. When morning comes, we're going to look around for Alexander Dawson. I want to try something as well. If I could get my hands on an old Victorian dress, I could probably walk around and pass for human. I could then look around and tell you when I find him."

"Sounds like a good idea… only where are you going to find a dress like that?"

"How strongly are you opposed to stealing things?" I asked as I found a dress shop that had been closed overnight. I closed my eyes and stepped through the wall like it was water. I looked around. Ronald was watching me with a dubious expression on his face.

"What if someone sees you?" He mouthed. I shrugged and kept looking. I wanted something plain. I didn't want to look like a noblewoman. I wanted to blend in with the crowd. I found a plain looking violet dress. I took it and made sure that no one would notice it was missing in the morning. I stepped back through the wall.

"The best part of the human world is that stuff like this happens all the time. Anyway, I'll return it once I have the chance."

*back in the shinigami world, William's POV, third person perspective*

William watched the grim reapers train with their pickaxes. He wondered how Leah was doing. A grim reaper came running up.

"Excuse me, sir… we have some bad news."

"What is it?"

"Two of the grim reapers who were sent to the human world yesterday disappeared off the record."

William stood up and sighed.

"Which two grim reapers?"

"Ronald Knox and Leah Hayes, sir"

He followed the person into the hallway to the reception room.

"What do you mean by 'they disappeared off the record'?" Grell yelled. "I thought that wasn't supposed to happen!"

"I-I'm s-s-sorry…." The grim reaper behind the desk cowered. William walked forwards and hit Grell over the head with his death scythe.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You have to learn to keep your emotions in check, Grell Sutcliff."

"But Will! She's my best friend! She's the only person I have left! What are we going to do?"

"We wait." William said. "They should return by Wednesday. By then they might reappear on the record. If they don't reappear on the record or in the shinigami world by Wednesday, I will go into the human world and get them myself."

*back in the human world, Leah's POV, first person perspective*

I walked inconspicuously with the crowd. A woman wearing glasses was quite unusual; especially a young woman who was in her twenties wearing glasses. Not to mention that my hair color was so unusual…but no one seemed to pay me any attention. I walked around. So far it was just a mob of people. No names had appeared in the lenses of my glasses yet. I wasn't sure whether or not that was a good or bad thing.

"Excuse me, miss" Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and flinched away.

"Yes?" I tried to remain as calm as possible. I'd never seen a human, let alone talked to one

"I seem to be having a problem knowing where to go. Do you know the directions to the Edinburgh warehouse?"

"It's just around the corner." I said, pointing it out.

"Thank you very much." He walked away. I hurried along, looking for people. I saw a flash of purple on my lenses for just a second. Someone had just walked around a corner. I ran to follow that person. Sure enough, there was a purple sign above his head that said 'Alexander Dawson'. I ducked behind an alley and called Ronald.

"Hello?"

"I found him!" I said in barely more than a whisper. "Get down here!"

In less than thirty seconds, Ronald had jumped down from the roof. I pointed at him.

"Ah, you're right."

"Of course I'm right."

"Let's follow him."

We tailed him all the way to his house. We watched from the rooftop through the window as he took out an artist's paintbrush and began to paint.

"So he's an artist, huh? Not what I expected."

"Leah, we found him. Let's just kill him and get this over with."

"No" I snapped. "We're not going to be committing any senseless murder. Remember that just because you have the power to kill, doesn't mean you can over use it. Every soul you collect has meaning. Don't start forgetting the value of things that can't return. Besides… even if we do kill him now… we have no means of getting back. She didn't tell us how to open the portal to get back."

We watched his habits for two days. As time progressed, I saw that he wasn't a very interesting or nice person. He was into pick pocketing and drug smuggling through his artwork. The time came when I agreed with Ronald and we decided to kill him. I had returned the dress to the shop. I had no use for it anymore.

My death scythe changed from a bracelet into two hunting knives.

"Whoa, that's cool. Wasn't your death scythe a different shape, though?" Ronald asked.

"I can make it switch forms."

"That's awesome. I've never heard of any death scythe that could do that."

"Enough talk. Let's get going."

"Right"


	12. danse macabre

Chapter 12: danse macabre

We walked to the base where he purchased his drugs and waited outside for him to walk out. It was night time. Humans didn't realize that they weren't the only people who moved about at night. It was a rather quick kill. I jumped behind him, stabbed him and waited until his cinematic record rolled out. Ronald then collected his soul with his death scythe.

"Well… that wasn't so hard. I thought it would be worse." I said as my death scythe changed back into its original form. I leaned on it like a walking stick.

"I guess we got off lucky. Now what do we do?"

"I guess we have to try and find our way out of here." I said.

"How do we do that?"

"The water! If there's water nearby, we might be able to get out." I jumped up onto the roof and looked around.

"Leah, come down! It's no use! We don't know the spell to open the portal! Besides, the nearest pier is almost a day's worth of travel away! It wouldn't do us any good."

I jumped down and sighed. I sat beside Ronald on a pile of crates in the alley.

"I guess."

"What I don't get is why she didn't tell us. Isn't it necessary that we know how to find our way back?"

"Maybe it's another part of the test?" I suggested.

"That's not it. They would make it reasonably possible to figure out. Here, we have our hands tied."

I agreed with him on that.

*back in the shinigami world, William's POV, third person perspective*

"Well, have you found them yet?" William asked as he walked to the reception.

"No, sir. There's no sign of either of them."

"They're almost a day past their time limit." William said. "Yet it says that the soul of Alexander Dawson has been collected." He was starting to get worried. During his final examination, he'd almost died. Yet he and Grell had returned to the shinigami world on time. Leah was nowhere to be seen and not heard of. He didn't care about the other one. He was worried about her once again. He didn't know why. "I'm going to go look for them." William said. "They both have completed their examination. Once I find them, make sure they pass and are given proper positions."

"Right away, sir."

William walked towards the pier. That woman had disturbed his schedule so much that he was now even getting used to it. He was even willing to trade shifts with someone to go look for her. However, he was getting a bad feeling. He hoped he could get there on time.

*In the human world, Leah's POV, first person perspective*

"Leah! Leah, wake up!"

I woke up, completely disoriented.

"What is it?"

"Do you hear that?" Ronald asked. He looked scared. I listened. It was silent.

"I don't hear anything."

"Listen for a little longer."

In the silence, I heard a faint noise. It was a scratching noise, like someone raking their fingernails on roof shingles. We looked above us, but there was nothing there but the roof and the starry night sky.

"Maybe it's just an animal?" I said.

"Listen to the noise. It's too big to be a squirrel or a racoon." His eyes darted around. My eyes did too. My eyes functioned like headlights in the darkness, especially when I was scared. The more emotion I felt, the brighter they would glow. I climbed up on the rooftop, which was illuminated in the yellow light coming from my eyes. There was nothing there.

"Hey, there's nothing here." I said as I jumped down. There was no one there. Ronald had disappeared again. I heard a yell in the distance not too far from me. I cursed and started running as fast as I could towards the sound.

As I ran, I thought I saw a shadow pass right beside me, but when I turned to look at it, there was nothing there. This was getting weirder and weirder. I jumped down into the alleyway.

"Ronald!" He was lying beside a crate. His lawnmower had been bent in half and lay in a wreck not too far from him.

"Run" He whispered. "Get away from here!"

I looked around. The shadows around the walls seemed to thicken.

"Ah…" I took a step back. Demons. Lots and lots of shadow demons. There had to be at least thirty of them, all with shadowy figures, glowing red eyes and hungry smiles. I cast a shield spell around Ronald, hoping it would work for even a little bit.

My death scythe spiralled into full form.

"Shit…" I knew that the chances of me making it out were slim. But there was a chance. I had a death scythe. They were weaponless. I knew that I wouldn't die from blows alone, and that my soul couldn't be taken by a demon.

They hissed and took a step back as the light reflected off the metal of my death scythe. I swung it and vaporized a dozen of them that ran at me first. But for every demon that died, more would take their places. I created a rocket launcher out of my death scythe and fired a beam of light. It hit several demons and blew a hole in the wall.

I jumped and flipped out of the way as a demon attacked me. I spun around and slashed it in half. There was no blood. The shadow just sifted away and turned into ash on the pavement. I ran around, firing everything I could from arrows to hunting knives to fusion cannon blasts. My bow and arrow shifted to a machine gun. I wasn't really thinking. All my mind was telling me to do was _kill… kill… defend… kill…. kill… defend… kill_

I spun in a circle and killed all the demons that had surrounded me. I flew up, rocketed off the wall, shooting round clips of explosives as I went. I knew that I had to apply everything I had learned in training to get out of this alive, and possibly save Ronald as well. The shield around him seemed to be holding up nicely, but all the demons had their attention on me. In a way, that was a good thing.

I felt like every fight was a well practiced dance. A danse macabre. A dance of death.

I'd never been more scared than I was now, nor had I ever been angrier. This was the glory of the fight. I raised my hands and a tornado of debris surrounded me. I flung it at the demons, blocking their vision of me. I made the wind pick up. Everything in a few hundred yards from me was picked up by the wind and dropped as if an immense hand had slapped them down back to earth.

I realized that this was my first real all out fight, where I was allowed to kill and destroy anything and everything I wanted. I certainly took advantage of it. My boots made clacking noises on the cobblestone as I ran around in circles, making a sharp cable surround all of them. It sliced them all into tiny shadow pieces which lay on the cobblestone paths.

I heard other footsteps running up. I hoped it was help, because I couldn't keep this up for much longer. The demon's numbers were growing smaller, but my strength was also weakening. I began to get slower, my moves a little less coordinated.

_Breathe in… breathe out… you're doing great. _I told myself. _Almost done… _

I swung my death scythe as hard as I could, killing the last several demons.

I stood in the middle of the battlefield I'd created, ankle deep in piles of ashes, the remains of my kill. I looked around to make sure there were no more demons. I sank to my knees… it was all over. Then I blacked out.


	13. invitation

Chapter 13: invitation

I woke up to see the stars overhead. I was in someone's arms.

"Ah, you're awake."

We were back in the shinigami world. It was night time, and the stars shone brightly. I looked into William's eyes. His eyes were more green than yellow. They were a nice color, not a weird almost completely yellow color like mine. I was completely awake now.

"William… what happened? Where is everyone? Is Ronald okay?"

"He's fine. Everyone's at the library waiting for you. Ronald is fine for now. You did an amazing job. I don't think I've ever seen anyone take on that many demons at a time and survive through it."

"Did I pass the test?" I wondered.

"That should be the least of your worries at the moment, but yes you did pass. You're now a grim reaper."

"That's good to hear."

"From now on, you and Ronald will be my two direct subordinates. You're never going in the human world again without anyone else there. I can't believe she would have been so stupid as to not tell you how to get back. If we'd known there were demons in the human world, we would have postponed your exam."

After today's incident, I NEVER wanted to go back into the human world again, but if William was there it wouldn't be so bad. I tried not to blush as he carried me all the way to the library.

"You can put me down. I can walk" I said. He put me down. I stumbled and nearly fell.

"Are you sure about that?" He asked.

"Oh shut up…" I said. I let him carry me again into an empty chair.

"Wait here." He said. Like I had any way to disobey his orders. I couldn't move even if I wanted to. Pretty soon, the doors opened again and practically everyone I knew from the grim reaper school came in.

Grell wouldn't let go of me. I guessed I had scared him a second time. I'd better not make a habit out of it. Everyone looked relieved to see both of us back safely. Miss Black smiled at me, but it was more of an 'interesting…I wonder why you're not dead' smile than an 'I'm so glad you're okay' smile. It made me suspicious of her. Had she dropped Ronald in the wrong place on purpose in an attempt to separate us permanently? And she was the one who had neglected to tell us how to get back and left us trapped for bloodthirsty demons to find us.

After a talk we could go home. I would begin permanently working as a true grim reaper every day starting tomorrow.

"Jeez…" I complained as Grell helped me walk home. I stared at the huge pile of documents in my hands. "I'm supposed to sort through all of this by tomorrow?"

"Welcome to being a grim reaper, honey."

"Ehh… I guess it can't be so bad… See you tomorrow." I said as I closed the door. I limped up the stairs and put the pile of documents on my desk. I sat down and began leafing through all of them. A letter that was neatly folded into three pieces fell out of the pile on the floor. I cursed and with difficulty picked it up from the ground. I unfolded it. I read it once, twice and then three times. I still couldn't make sense of it. I walked down the stairs.

"Grell!" I called through the window. He walked into his kitchen. I held out the letter for him to see. "What is this?"

He took it and read it over.

"Oh, this is a social gathering for grim reapers and shinigami. Remember I invited you to go with me that one year?"

"Oh yeah… and I said no every year, right?"

"I don't understand why you hate balls so much." Grell said before adjusting his glasses and reading further. "It's next week at the Valleycastle road in the green city at ten."

"Throw it in the garbage." I said. "I'm not going."

"Uh, uh, uh!" Grell said, wagging a finger at me and holding the invitation away from me before I could snatch it and rip it in half. "You're not getting away from this one so easily. Because you're a grim reaper now, you have to go. You wouldn't want to look bad in front of everyone else, right?"

"Tch…" I looked away. I desperately tried to find an excuse. Any excuse that would allow me not to go. "I don't have any dresses." I said.

"We'll go buy you one before then."

"I don't know how to dance…" I tried again. This was a lie, I did know how to dance, but I'd never danced before. I remembered my mom had taught me. Grell must have thought that I forgot.

"I'll teach you. It's not so hard."

"I don't have anyone to go with…"

"I'll be your escort"

"Crap… there really is no way out of this, is there?"

"Nope!" Grell smiled as he put the invitation out of sight. "Maybe you'll meet your perfect man there. You can't turn down a glorious opportunity like this?"

_An opportunity to look like an idiot in a dress especially in front of William? _I had a thing against dresses and skirts in general. The frillier and more expensive looking, the worse. Dresses and skirts weren't comfortable. I hated wearing them. I couldn't run in them. My mom had tried to force me into a dress when I was five. Let me tell you now, it ended with me grounded for a month. At least I didn't have to wear the dress.

I had never voluntarily worn any dress in my life. Gosh, this was going to be such a change. Sadly, it wouldn't be a good change. I'd feel like a laughing stock even if every other woman was wearing a dress.

"Well, you have something to look forwards to now!"

I groaned. More like not look forwards to…


	14. my job as a grim reaper

Chapter 14: my job as a grim reaper

Sadly, being a shinigami was even worse than training. It wasn't so much the fighting as it was the paperwork. William put me and Ronald through hell every day, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Still, I had tons of things to do. It seemed like every night I would have at least ten cinematic records to go through, review or piece together, stacks of papers to look through and to die lists to fix.

I had judged my very first soul a few days ago. Judging a soul was basically deciding if the soul on trial was destined for heaven or hell. It wasn't so hard. I was given a list, and I had to look through that soul's cinematic record. If they had done anything that corresponded with that list, they would get sent to hell, and if the list was clear, they would get to go to heaven.

I willingly worked overtime daily partially because I loved my job and partially because I was trying to stall the whole 'buying the dress' thing as long as I could. I had managed to do a pretty good job of that, as there were only two days left until the ball, not counting tomorrow when William, Ronald and I have to go to the human world.

However, any excuses I made, Grell would always counter it with a perfect solution. It seemed like there was nothing I could do to try to skip the ball. It's not like I could call in sick because shinigami didn't get sick unless they were poisoned. Finally I decided grudgingly that it was no longer worth the struggle.

I would also solve other people's problems as well. If an idiot grim reaper screwed up the process of converting a cinematic record into book format, I would be the first person they'd come to so that I could put it back together again. I finally got why William was always so annoyed when someone screwed something up. It was really annoying to have to correct other people's mistakes when they weren't watchful enough. Nevertheless, I did my job with a smile daily.

I was assigned to teach the spells class because of my apparent 'amazing magical and spell casting abilities' as said by one of the people from the managerial class. I began to wear my glasses more often, but I would always take them off whenever I could. I didn't want to rely on them, especially since I didn't need them. I put them on only when I taught lessons, which was the greater part of the day. The other smaller half of the day I spent either talking to William because our lunch hour was the same, or sitting at my desk fixing other people's mistakes.

I was at that part of my day, trying to piece together a cinematic record that had been ripped apart. Putting all of the events in the proper order was like a mind breaking puzzle. I took my glasses off for a couple of seconds and took a break. _You know you really love someone when you're willing to wear glasses all day for them. _I thought. My cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey Lee-lee"

"Oh, Grell, it's you. Where are you? The connection is terrible." I said, straining to hear him talk.

"In the human world, darling. I'm going to come back at five. I'll be waiting for you outside the library. We need to go shopping today. When else are you going to go? Today's the last day. You can't stall any longer."

"But… I have… extra papers to do for work. Some idiot accidentally ripped a cinematic record in half. I've been trying to piece it back together for over two hours now."

"Don't worry, I'll help you fix it after we come back from shopping. Finding a good dress for you comes first."

"You have some pretty weird priorities."

"You're going to regret this if you don't do as I say. You're going to miss out on the best night of your life!"

"I'm not going to miss anything…" I grumbled. _Though if I got to dance with William that would be nice…._

"Oh come on. No excuses now. I'm waiting for you at five o' clock sharp."

"Sure… be careful while you're coming back."

"Yeah… see you later."

"Bye"

I hung up and went back to piecing the cinematic record back into place.

"How is it coming along?" William asked as he walked to my desk.

"Horribly." I said, staring down the cinematic record. "Honestly, who can be so careless as to cut and mess up an entire cinematic record? I'll have to work overtime again…"

"You're starting to sound like me."

"Am I really?" I asked absentmindedly.

"Would you like me to help you?"

"YES PLEASE. This thing is killing me." William smiled, like he was about to laugh, but of course he never did.

"Well we can't have that, can we?"

He dragged over a chair beside mine and viewed the cinematic record.

"You've done a pretty good job so far."

"Yeah… only a million and a half memories left to go…"

"Most of them are in a chain order." He pointed out. "At least they were broken off in reasonable chunks. I've seen cinematic records that have been broken down to every tiny memory."

"I wonder how many grim reapers that must have taken to fix…"

"Quite a few"

We sat together for a little while, piecing together the cinematic record. I tried not to pay attention to the fact that we were sitting so close together. It made me slightly nervous but in a way I also wished he wouldn't move away. The clock turned to five.

Well… time to go dress shopping…


	15. dress shopping

Chapter fifteen: dress shopping

I sighed and stood up.

"Have a good evening, Leah."

"Yeah, you too" I went to take the broken cinematic record when his hand moved it out of the way.

"I suggest not worrying about this too much." He said. "I'll finish it myself. You've already done half the work. I'll do the other half. After all, it's rude to force someone to do all this work by themselves."

"Oh… thank you." I smiled and waved as I walked out the door. William had brightened my mood significantly… that is until I saw Grell waiting for me with his red Harley parked on the curb. He ruffled my hair as I walked to him. He did it usually to annoy me. He always did it when I was younger and I hated it, but he would do it anyway. I put on the spare red helmet and we rode out into the outskirts of the blue city where all the shops were.

"I don't understand why all of this is necessary." I grumbled as we parked on the pavement.

"It's most definitely necessary. You need to look stunning." Grell said. We walked into the shop. Let the nightmare begin. Everywhere I looked everything was fancy. Every dress I saw, I didn't like. All were too frilly, too fancy, too revealing or just plain weird.

"How about this one?" Grell asked as he pulled out a very short light pink dress with a v-neck.

"Hell no! You of all people should know that I hate pink."

"Why are you such a disagreeable shopper? I've never met anyone harder to shop for than you."

"Oh gee thanks." I said. "Listen, that's something Ashlyn would wear. I really don't have the urge to dress like a hooker. If you want me to wear a dress, it has to be something that works for me, that looks nice. That does not work."

"Eugh… don't even mention that one."Grell said in disgust.

Ashlyn was a grim reaper girl who lived next door. She was one hundred percent full blood grim reaper, and she was as proud as hell for it. There were only roughly ten full blooded grim reaper families. The Redwood family, the Sutcliff family, the Hayes family, the Whitewood family, the Black family, the Spears family, the Knight family and a few others I didn't remember. She treated us like she was so far above us though our peerage rank was exactly the same.

She constantly made nasty comments about Grell as we got older, and called me names and telling me I was so retarded for hanging out with a loser like him. 'Well, losers attract' She had said. I wanted to rip her throat out. I am happy to say that I had used my telekinesis and thrown her into a wall.

She dressed in really revealing stuff and had the attitude of a hooker. Not only was she spoiled rotten but she had a dirty mouth and could make anyone feel bad. Anything from names to your appearance, she would find some way to make you look bad. I had always loved my middle name. My middle name was Ariadne, like the princess from the Greek legends. She had made me hate my middle name.

I shook my head and went back to digging through the dress racks. Thinking about Ashlyn was really not improving my mood. If only shinigami could appear on the to-die list. I hadn't found anything that was to my liking. Everything was just plain weird.

"What about this one?"

"Um… its okay but I wouldn't really wear that one…" I guessed it was pretty, but the back was far too low. It made me self conscious.

"This one?"

"It's hideous!"

"You're impossible."

"I know, but seriously, it looks like someone cut three holes in a pillowcase. I'm never wearing something like that."

"What about this one?"

"Look at the size. It's ten times too big for me."

"Oh… right, sorry!"

Let me tell you right away, shopping is very tiring, even for a shinigami. We spent roughly an hour in one store, two hours in another and half an hour in the third until we finally walked into the last dress store. I instantly saw a few dresses I liked and began rummaging around to find something more like what I wanted. I gave Grell a good description of the perfect dress I was looking for so that he could help me look.

"Hey, look at this one! Lee-lee, come over here!"

I walked over to see Grell holding up a pastel purple dress.

"Wow… it's really nice. Great find…" I walked into the fitting room to try it on. I took a closer look at it. It was really pretty, that was all I had to say. It was practically my perfect dress. The light pastel purple wasn't faded, but it wasn't bright either, like a soft amethyst color. Not only was it perfectly plain without any stupid decorations, it was also shapeless, something I really liked. Not like pillowcase shapeless, but form hugging shapeless.

It wasn't so uptight that I felt like a hooker in it, but it hugged my form and made me feel nice. It spread out just a tiny bit at the hem and was around ankle length, maybe just a bit higher once I put it on. It had a wide neckline with pleated wide t-shirt sleeves made out of a fluttery amethyst color. It was so pretty. It fit me like it had been made just for me.

I stepped out.

"Well, what do you think?" I did an experimental twirl.

"It looks amazing. That's definitely what we're looking for."

"Okay, I'm taking it."

I ended up buying the dress, along with a pair of matching high heeled shoes, some pastel violet flower clips and a ribbon like necklace with an amethyst in the center of the bow.

"Whew, glad that's over with." I said as I got on the Harley.

"Come on, it wasn't so bad"

"Yes it was. I'm never going dress shopping again."

"Oh yes you are. What about next year? You're not going to wear the same boring dress over and over again, are you? I'm just waiting for the right moment to drag you in again."

"Of course…" I sighed.

One of my worries was over. Now the bigger part of my concern was the actual ball and the fact that I would have to go back to the human world tomorrow to reap the soul of an assassin. Scared much? You bet…


	16. assassins, trains and rigged explosions

Chapter 16: Assassins, trains and rigged explosions

The sky was dark and cloudy. It was foggy. I hated fog. William, Ronald and I were standing outside waiting for a train to come. I was glad it was cold, because I could just wear a long jacket and pretend I was wearing an old Victorian dress. Humans were so behind on technology that I had transformed Ronald's death scythe into a watch because they didn't have lawnmowers yet.

The wind whistled through the dead trees as the train came onto the track. I watched as some humans looked around uneasily. There was a strange aura of death around the entire train station, but according to William, there hadn't been any recent deaths here. Sure, I was scared too, but I wasn't that scared. I wondered how odd we looked to everyone else. I wasn't wearing my glasses to make us look a little less obvious.

All of us were wearing all black, and we all had almost the exact same eye color. It was true that no one would notice our eye color right away… it was my eyes that I was worried about. They glowed like a cat's or dog's in the night, and would function as a flashlight if I was scared. The more emotion I felt, the brighter they would glow.

We boarded the train and I felt even more uneasy. The three of us chose one of the back compartments and waited. I sat beside William, while Ronald sat near the window of the compartment. He lifted the curtain slightly and looked out into the train.

"The assassin is sitting three compartments in front of us, and his victims are in the opposite compartment."

"The time of death for the victims is set at midnight, and the time of death for the killer is set five minutes after that." I read out from my to-die list. "It's ten in the evening at the moment. Do we sit and wait?"

"Yes. Let's see how things play out."

I felt really uneasy about that. Apparently my nervousness was visible, because William tapped my shoulder.

"Are you all right, Leah?"

"Yes… I'm just worried. This entire train smells like death. It's not normal." I fiddled with my death scythe, the skulls giving off yellow sparks when my fingers touched them. I would be hard pressed when two hours passed. A mouse skittered across the floor. The sudden movement made me jump and grab William's arm. Ronald started to laugh until William hit him over the head with his death scythe.

"Please try to relax. We're not on a death row." He said. "You're perfectly safe. Nothing's going to happen to you here."

_It's not me I'm worried about._ It was stupid, but I was really worried over what might happen. Just because we were death gods didn't mean we couldn't die. I nodded. Someone tried to slide the door open.

"Hey, it's locked." A muffled voice said. They knocked on the door.

"Quick, close your eyes and pretend you're asleep." William whispered. "We can't let them see your eyes." Sure enough, the space where I was looking was flooded with light. My eyes had gone into 'flashlight mode' as I liked to call it again. I lay down on the seat and closed my eyes as I heard Ronald open the door.

"What do police officers want with us?" William asked.

"Forgive us for the intrusion, however there is evidence pointing to the fact that a criminal might be on this train. Would you mind if we take a look around your compartment?"

"Not at all."

They walked around. I heard their footsteps clunking on the floor as they looked under the chairs and beside the curtains.

"Hmm… nothing to see here. Forgive us for the intrusion."

"No problem." They closed the door and I sat up.

"So the police are on this as well?" I put my glasses on. "It might cause a spot of a problem for us."

"I doubt it. They will most likely leave the train at the next stop."

"What time is it, Ronald?"

"It's almost midnight."

My death scythe changed from a bracelet into a hunting knife, which I tucked into my sleeve.

"Leah, you and I will take care of the assassin. Ronald, you go to take the souls of the victims once he's done with them." William said.

"Yes, sir" Ronald checked his watch. "Three minutes 'till midnight."

We slid our compartment door open and looked outside. We could already hear the sounds of scuffling and screaming.

"Murder is a disgusting thing. And humans are disgusting creatures." I said.

"I quite agree with you. Let's wait until everyone runs out of this section of the train." William said. We looked out of the compartment window.

"RUN!" someone yelled as a man stumbled into view. He was carrying a scalpel. He was covered in blood and had an insane smile on his face. People ran for the exits into other sections of the train. I could hear them barricading everything. The man walked towards the conductor's cabin. With a snap of my fingers, the door locked from both sides. The murder was now locked in this section of the train, and the conductors wouldn't be able to get out of their cabin until we were long gone.

"My, my… murdering someone else. How lowly." I said as I walked out of the compartment.

"Watch it, Lady." He growled. "Or you might be next. I think I'd make good money for you as a hostage. You look like a rich one. Perhaps lots of family members?"

"You couldn't be wider off the mark."

I said as I walked towards him. He ran at me, but I caught the knife in my bare hand and threw him backwards. William walked forwards to join me.

"See, we don't exist anywhere. There are no papers or documents of our existence anywhere."

"Who the hell are you people?" He spit as William's death scythe fastened around his knife and ripped it out of his hand.

"We're grim reapers. Surely you've heard of them?" I asked as my death scythe took its original form. He took a step back. "Sorry, but your life ends here. I do hope they don't torture you too much in hell." I said as I stepped forwards. My eyes glowed as I stared into his eyes. With an easy flick of my wrist, I made a neat diagonal cut across his chest and he fell. His cinematic record unwound and I collected it in my death scythe. The hollow sockets of the skull on my death scythe glowed bright yellow for a minute, letting me know that both the cinematic record and the soul were collected. Beside me, Ronald was taking the souls and the people's cinematic record's.

"See, that wasn't so bad." William said. A sudden ticking made me freeze. "What's the matter?" He asked. I didn't have time to say anything before the first bomb blew up in the front. We scattered backwards. The compartment beside us blew up. William threw me into a different compartment as the one I was standing beside blew into pieces.

"It's a chain rig!" I yelled above the roar of the explosion. "The explosions are going to get bigger until the entire cart blows up!"

"Can't we do anything?"

"Hardly!" I said as I pulled Ronald out of the way. A third bomb blew up right where he'd been standing. "If I'm right, the bombs won't affect the other people in the train because they've all made their way to the very back of the train. It's just this compartment and the one behind us. Apparently, he really badly wanted to kill these people."

"What are we waiting for, then? Let's go before it blows up!" Ronald said, looking panicked. I ran into the nearest compartment and opened the window. I jumped out and flung myself into the bushes. Anyone else would have died, but we did well in these situations and I landed unharmed. Two thumps beside me told me that William and Ronald had done the same thing. We stood up and watched as the train went a little further. Then the part of the train we were in exploded in a shower of sparks.

"And that is why I hate humans." I said in a disgusted tone of voice.

"However, this is all very suspicious." William said. "It's a strange coincidence that the train on which we were on was rigged to explode in the compartment we were in."

"I don't like it either." I said. "Let's get going. There's no point wondering over it anymore. Our job is done."

And with that, William made the portal appear and we walked back into the shinigami world. At least someone else shared my suspicions. It was too strange.

I talked to Grell about it when I got home and he seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Hmm… there's no doubt that there's something fishy going on. First you get poisoned and nearly die… then you and Ronald are nearly killed by demons… and now this. Anyone could put it together."

"I don't know what we should do…" I said, scanning over my to-die list.

"We don't need to do anything, darling! This is a story made to unfold further into your life to create a masterpiece of adventures. Either way, there's nothing we can do even if we needed to do it."

I sighed. Of course he would say that.

"Either way, you need to stop thinking about that. The ball's tomorrow! You can't lose any sleep before a ball. You have to look your best."

"Uh huh… tell me, if I look horrible when I wake up, does that mean I don't have to go?" I asked hopefully.

"No, that just means you'll have to put on twice as much make up."

"Ugh…"

"There's no way you're dragging yourself out of this one." He said with a smiled.

"I can see that. Good night." I said as I jumped back through the window and walked up the stairs, feeling annoyed. Whoop de doo… the ball was tomorrow. _I can't wait._ I thought sarcastically.

Maybe I should have gotten hurt on purpose or lied and said that the bomb had actually hurt me so I couldn't go? I should have thought of that earlier. Too late now.


	17. the ball

Chapter 17: the ball

I sat in my room, carefully curling my hair with the hot curling rod. Once I was finished, I blew out the candle light and allowed the stick of metal to cool. I was trying to delay the process of actually going to the ball as much as possible. I pinned it up and stuck the flower pins in it. I dabbed on a bit of makeup and fastened the ribbon necklace around my neck and put matching purple earrings on. I slid the dress over my head and put my shoes on. I walked downstairs and sat at the kitchen counter. I had made myself some coffee so that I would at least survive and not fall asleep in the middle of the ball.

Grell had rented a car for a day because I had told him that there was no way I was getting on a motorcycle in a dress.

"You look so pretty, Lee-lee"

"Thanks."

"You should really wear dresses more often."

"Yeah, thanks but no thanks." I said as we got into the car. It took us roughly an hour to drive to the green city though it wasn't that long of a trip. There were random people crowding up the streets for no reason, but then again they usually were.

We walked into the huge light green tinted manor to find people already dancing and talking. The laughter of many voices could be heard from the manor as we walked in. The ballroom was huge, and full of people. Thankfully, every other woman was wearing a dress, so I fit in perfectly and didn't stand out in the slightest bit. I tried to look for William in the crowd, but I didn't see him. I wanted to walk around and look for him, but I was immediately asked to dance by some random shinigami. Grell had walked off somewhere and had left me completely alone. What choice did I have?

I found Ronald in the crowd and we talked for a little bit and danced together once.

"Hey, have you seen William?"

"Yeah… I think he was somewhere over there, last time I checked."

"Ok, thanks."

I headed off in that direction.

"Oh look who it is! Leah Ariadne Hayes. You're probably the last person I'd think would be here."

"Why hello, Ashlyn Clarisse Redwood." I said, mimicking the way she had said my full name out loud. Ashlyn's perfectly tweezed eyebrow twitched. She hated her middle name as well. She was dressed in a practically neon orange dress that yelled 'look at me!' to the entire crowd. As usual, it was far too short to be considered decent and she tottered along on impossibly tall orange high heels to disguise the fact that she was only 5'1. Even still with her ridiculously tall heels, she was shorter than me, though I was wearing such a small heel that I might as well have been wearing my favourite boots. I was roughly the usual height, five foot four.

"It sure is nice to see you here." She said, with a look that completely said otherwise. "Tell me, darling, what made you come this year? Did you finally become less of a loser? I didn't think you would like to go to a party as cool as this."

"Truth to be told, I wouldn't have come. But I just became a grim reaper so I had to come."

"A grim reaper, huh? How interesting" Her eyes told me that she didn't believe me. "Do you have a real death scythe?"

"Yes" _And I'm dangerously close to pulling it out and using it on you._ I thought angrily.

"How nice to see that you've finally unlocked something you're good at. Now tell me, where did you get your dress? It's so stunningly old and far too long. Did you go to the human world to get it? You could wear something more attractive once in a while. This is hardly a change." She said, waving a dismissive hand at my dress.

"Well if you'll excuse me, I don't want to look like a prostitute. I like this dress, and unlike some people, I don't want guys to be staring down my shirt everywhere I go. Now, if you'd be so kind as to allow me to try to enjoy this evening without butting into my life, or you might just find a machine gun aimed at you in the next thirty seconds."

I turned my back on her and walked away.

"Is that a threat?" She yelled after me.

"Think of it as you want." I said. I ran straight into William. "Oh, William. Hi"

"Hello Leah" He said. He was smiling slightly, like he'd just heard something funny. My heart sank.

"Don't tell me you heard all of that."

"I did. I must say I didn't think that you were capable of standing up for yourself."

"After everything I said to you on the first day we met?"

"Well… that was me. I've seen her around. Not the nicest person."

"I'll agree with you on that one."

"You look lovely this evening. Well… you look lovely every day… today especially."

"Thank you" I tried not to blush. I'd never been told that before, especially not by someone I liked increasingly more and more each day.

The band began to play. Many people walked out onto the dance floor again.

"Ah, the music has started. What do you say we join them?"

"Sure."

He offered me his hand and I took it happily. We danced for a while, and it was actually fun. I found that I was enjoying myself quite a bit. The entire evening, I didn't step out of his arms. He looked happy as well, as much as William could look happy.

The ball ended at two in the morning.

"See you tomorrow at work then?" I asked. He nodded.

"Oh, Leah" I turned around. He seemed to be struggling with his words, something you didn't see very often with a guys like William. "Thank you for the dance. This was more fun than I thought it would be."

I smiled and nodded.

"Have a good night." I said before I got into the car with Grell.

"Aw isn't that so sweet." Grell said, smiling. "You love him so much."

I choked on the coffee that Grell had given me so that I stayed alive until we came home.

"What?" I asked, coughing and spluttering.

"Aw come on darling, don't try to hide it. You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"Um well…." I fidgeted uncomfortably. How could I say this…? "Yes" I finally admitted. AAAH! What the hell was I doing, telling Grell this? Grell was the last person who could probably keep it a secret. I bit my tongue as I waited for his reaction. He was still smiling.

"Well, why didn't you tell me sooner?" He asked as we pulled into the driveway. "He loves you too, you know."

"What? No he doesn't. He probably just thinks of me as a friend, if even that. Besides I wouldn't want to… well… I don't know…."

"Lee lee, are you happy right now?" The question took me by surprise.

"Well… yes. I guess I am."

"Then nothing else matters! Let your passionate romance take you into the stars, immortalizing you two like Romeo and Juliet forever!"

"Erm… didn't Romeo and Juliet both die?"

"That's beside the point. They loved each other more than anything else in the world."

"We're not even dating yet. Besides, I'm not even sure if he likes me."

"Trust me, he does. I've known William for a long time, and I've never ever seen him act like that around anyone. I've never met anyone who could get off the hook with him the way you do… I can't believe he didn't fire you on the spot for not wearing your glasses… much less make him smile. You two are meant for each other! Oh, I can just smell a love story coming!" Grell said excitedly.

"Hmm… maybe. Good night, Grell."

"See you later"

I walked into my room, not letting him see how much I wished that it was true.


	18. uncertainty

Chapter 18: uncertainty

"You have got to be kidding me." I stared down incredulously at the pile of cinematic records a sheepish looking grim reaper had just deposited on my desk. I glared at him. "Do you mind explaining to me how you managed to mix up _four_ different cinematic records? Anyway" I waved my hand dismissively at the pile of work sitting on my desk. "I have papers to correct. I don't have the time to fix this. Go talk to Miss Black about it."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Hayes. You see… these people's names were so much alike that I confused their memories together until I couldn't remember who was who."

"Perhaps you should have put your glasses on while you read the names." I suggested, my eyes narrowing. "Our job is not something you can make mistakes on. These are people's lives and their life stories. Someone else's life might be accidentally taken if the information in a cinematic record is wrong." I said as I tapped the book cover. "I don't care how much you think you look like an idiot with your glasses on. Let me tell you that you look even more like an idiot when you screw up your job." I picked them up and set them back in front of him. "Go take them to Cheryl… I mean, Miss Black."

"I already did, miss. She had too much work to do."

"Of course she did…" I said. "Fine. I guess I'll have to work overtime again." I looked back up at the grim reaper who was hastily putting his glasses back on his face. "Remember, this is strike one. Don't let it happen again."

He nodded, thanked me and walked away.

I looked down at the practically demolished books.

"There's no way in hell I'll ever get this done on my own…" I then took the books to the person who always helped me when I had a problem. He looked up.

"Hey William. Do you think you could help me?"

"Of course. What's the problem?" In response to his question, I put the books on his desk. He flipped open a book cover gingerly, like it was made of sand and would crumble at his touch. The books looked so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if they did. He sighed. "Idiots" He muttered before turning to me.

"This is going to take us a few days to finish at least." He told me.

"Okay… how about after work, you come to my house? I have space where we can work. It's closer to here anyway. Maybe Grell can help us as well."

He agreed, though he didn't seem to be too happy about the fact that Grell and I shared a house. At five, we both walked home. I'd been over to William's house once, so I thought it would be nice to invite him over for once. He lived in the less crowded part of town. Grell and I lived in the very crowded part of town. Despite that, it was never loud in the shinigami world. It wasn't like the human world. As well, I always kept my house as neat as I could, so it wouldn't be a problem. I closed the door.

"You have a very nice place." He remarked. "Nothing in here is blue."

"Of course not. I redid everything as soon as I moved in. I can't stand the fact that blue is everywhere here. I mean, whose stupid idea was it to make everything just one color? All colors are pretty."

"It's quite a change." He said as I led him into the living room. My living room was basically several couches and chairs positioned around a coffee table with a fireplace on the opposite wall. There were several pictures of my childhood on the mantelpiece, but it wasn't anything that I didn't want him to see.

We sat on the couch and put our heads together. We worked a solid two hours without even looking up, and soon two of the books were as good as new.

"These people's names are completely different from one another. It's surprising how he didn't think to put his glasses on before he started converting their memories." I said.

"It was foolish" William agreed.

We didn't really talk much. Sometimes I would look at him. He would catch my eye and I would look away and blush. Sometimes it was the other way around. It was kind of awkward, like we were trying to ask each other something, but couldn't quite get the message across. It was like two people who had to tell each other something, but couldn't say a word. It was quite comfortable. We decided to take a break. I noticed that we were sitting very close to each other. I didn't know whether or not I should move away. If he didn't mind, I would probably stay there.

"Would you like some tea?" I asked.

"Why not…" He took his glasses off and rubbed the lenses with his sleeve. Again, I couldn't get over how cute he looked with or without them. I walked off towards the kitchen and set the kettle to boil.

*William's POV, third person perspective*

He watched her get up and leave. He tried to turn his attention back to his work, but it wasn't really going too well.

_Just tell her… it's going to be easier once you tell her._

_No. I'm not saying a word._

_Yes_

_Definitely not._

_Yes._

_No way._

_Come on, just tell her. What other time is there?_

_Ok, let's say I tell her. Then what comes next? What if she thinks I'm an idiot?_

Great, now he was arguing with himself. It was getting stranger and stranger every day. He'd never felt torn between any decision. This seemed to be such an easy task at first, but it was actually twice as difficult as he anticipated. He had tried to say something on the night of the ball, but then thought better of it at the last second, feeling way too embarrassed to actually say it. He hadn't been acting like himself for a while now. Since that rainy day that he had invited her to his house. Honestly. 'Stay… I mean… I'd like it if you stayed…' How much more like an idiot could he sound? It was a good thing she did stay; otherwise he would have felt even more like an idiot.

_There's no better time than this. You'll stop fighting with yourself if you just say it._

_She'll think I'm stupid._

_No she won't! Either way, you can't know unless you ask._

_Okay fine…_

_Tell her when she comes back in._

_I'll… see…_

_Don't be so uncertain! Just ask!_

*Leah's POV, first person perspective.*

I walked back inside, holding two mugs of hot tea. I set them down on the coffee table.

"Thank you"

"You're welcome."

I sat down beside him.

"Um… Leah…"

"Yes?"

"There's something I'd like to say…"


	19. unexpected events

Chapter 19: unexpected events

I walked back into the living room holding two mugs of hot tea.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." I sat down beside him.

"Um… Leah…"

"Yes?"

"There's something I'd like to say…"

He seemed embarrassed and lost for words, the same way he had at the ball. It was unusual for someone like William to be lost for words. He looked like he had no idea what to say or how to say it.

"What is it?" Before William could even say anything, the door opened and a familiar voice yelled into the house.

"I'm home!" The door shut. "Lee-lee, you've got a letter in the mail!" William looked really annoyed.

"Can't it wait?" I called.

"I think you'll want to see this." Grell said. I shot an apologetic look at William.

"I'll be right back."

I ran to the window where Grell was waiting for me with an old envelope. I looked at the wax seal.

"From work… am I in trouble?"

"The complete opposite, darling. I think you'll love what's written in here."

"You already looked at it."

"Well I couldn't help myself."

"When was the last time I looked through any of your things?" I asked disbelievingly as I cut the wax seal open, threw the envelope in the garbage and unfolded the neatly written letter. Even after reading it three times, I still thought it was some kind of joke. I could only stare at it.

"They think you deserve it." Grell said. "They say you're the best grim reaper they've seen in a while. One of them even told me that it was interesting how you never made any mistakes in your own job, yet spent the entire afternoon correcting the mistakes of those in a higher class than you."

"You can't be serious" Was all I could say after five minutes of trying to say something. "They… they want to promote me to the managerial class?"

"Hard work pays off, Lee-lee. You've done quite your share of it."

I had to pinch myself in the arm several times before I could actually get over the shock. I smiled.

"So all I have to do is send the reply after Sunday?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my gosh… I can't believe this…" I said happily. I walked back into the kitchen and tacked the letter onto the fridge door before walking back into the living room.

"Good news?" William asked with a smile.

"You were in on this too?"

"I was the one who suggested that you be promoted."

"Thank you so much…"

"You're welcome."

"Now what were you going to say before?" I asked. William hesitated.

"Um… it's hard to explain…"

"I have time."

"Well… you see… how do I say this… the thing is….-"

"-He liiiiiikes youuuuuu!" Grell said through the window. William stood up and picked up his death scythe. It extended through the window and he brought it down with a flick of his wrist. A crash and an "Ow" from Grell told me that William had hit Grell over the head with his death scythe. Another crash and a clattering noise told me that Grell had probably dropped whatever he was carrying.

I probably looked like an idiot. I was just sitting there with a WTF expression on my face.

"Pretty much… yes." William said.

I was still just sitting there, my brain unable to process anything. William misinterpreted my silence.

"Well… I mean I can understand if you don't really feel the same way… after all we only just met a few months ago and-" He stopped talking abruptly when I got up and hugged him.

"You're starting to talk much more than usual." I remarked. "Is your personality starting to change?"

"Now there's a horrible thought." William said as he hugged me back.

I could perfectly say that it was one of the best moments of my life.

*Monday*

"WHAAAT? You have got to be kidding me." Ronald said. I laughed and spun around on my new chair.

"I'm not kidding."

"They seriously promoted you to managerial class?"

"What can I say? No pain, no gain."

"And the rumour that you and sempai are dating?"

"Rumours travel like wildfire here. What, you've got something against that?" I asked.

"No. It's just that I can't really see him with someone like you."

"Oh, gee thanks."

"I didn't mean it like that! I mean that you guys are like polar opposites. It's strange that you two of all people would be a couple."

"Couple is overusing the word and the term. It's only been two days. We haven't even gone anywhere together. Until then, no one can really say we're a couple."

"Ok. That means I've got a lot of work to catch up with. If you can get promoted, so can I."

I smiled.

"That's the spirit. Good luck, though"

"Thanks." Ronald walked away and I felt happier than I had in a long time. Life was going great. It was an amazing feeling to know that the person I loved felt the same way, that my hard work was getting noticed, that I was getting more and more friends every day. I almost forgot that someone was trying to kill me.

**Hey people. Sorry for the short chapter. It's exams for me and all, so I have to study like hell. This has got to be one of my favourite chapters so far because William finally confesses his love for Leah. :D **

**if you want to see the soundtrack I had in mind for this chapter, go to youtube and type in**

**kuroshitsuji ost Little Lady 2. It's got to be one of the sweetest ost's I've ever heard.**

**~Darkironprincess17**


	20. child of death

Chapter 20: child of death

I was sitting and correcting some papers. It was roughly about time to leave, but I was working overtime, so the library was peacefully empty. A piece of paper slipped out of my pile. I bent and picked it up. It was one of my spell sheets that I frequently looked at for possible spells to teach my class. I noticed that almost all the spells on the list were crossed out. Time to get some new material. I unlocked the library and hurried along the corridor.

The library was in semi darkness. There were no lights installed in this place because there was never any need. No one ever came here after dark. I was one of the few exceptions along with a few others, and like them, I would only be here for a few minutes. Or so I thought until I came across a particular spell book in the tiny section of the library that wasn't made of cinematic records. I made my eyes glow as brightly as possible so that I could read it.

It was for the golden oracle, the enchanted cinematic record that would show a person their past and future. It was made to take more information out of the oracle. Not about the future, as that was impossible, but if someone happened not to know their past or were meant for something special, the oracle would tell them. It seemed interesting, but I already knew all of my past… or did I? It would be cool to learn if my eyes glowed just because of a normal thing, or was it because of something else? It would also the perfect way to see if someone was really trying to kill me.

Let me tell you straight off, I really regret my decision. I should have just taken the goddamn spell book and moved the hell out of there. But no, I had to take the golden oracle out of its special shelf and read it the spell. It shone with a strange light. Instead of drawing pictures on the page, it made a holographic projection in front of me, like I was watching a cinematic record.

The place was like an ancient church, something out of an ancient fantasy. It was dark, black as night. People were moving around with candles in their hands. They wore long cloaks and what I realized where black bird masks the doctors from the plague wore way back then. Those doctors weren't really doctors. They were grim reapers. The demon that had caused the black plague had created a lot of work for the grim reapers of way back when, and so many of them had to live in the human world for quite a while.

They never actually did any treating. They only checked up on the people who were ill with the plague to see if they were those on the to die list. If they were meant to die, they would make the death faster for the victim, and if they weren't meant to die, which was very few, they would be given the correct medicine to help them get better. My grandfather had been a grim reaper in the human world. I think I still have that bird mask lying around somewhere. I'd have to go look and check.

The grim reapers gathered around what looked to be a ray of light shining into one particular space. One grim reaper moved forwards and took off their mask. I was shocked to see that the man who had taken his mask off had the exact same eyes that glowed just as bright as mine. However, they were different somehow. They looked stranger than mine, more entrancing somehow, something that conveyed a feeling of power and death, a quality my eyes didn't have. He moved into the light.

"I relinquish my powers of death. I allow the next child of death to prosper and continue their quest to overcome the obstacle in their life. I have overcome my obstacle. I have done a great favour to our kind. I no longer require the powers I have been blessed with, as I have lived with them for so long." As he spoke, he took out his death scythe, a large gleaming executioner knife. He held it in front of his face. "They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Let my eyes be the windows that pass on the legacy." His eyes glowed so bright that they illuminated his entire figure. A skull made of golden smoke hovered above his figure. It vanished in a bunch of golden sparks. He opened his eyes again. They were the regular grim reaper color, no longer glowing or predominantly yellow. They were the perfect balance of green and yellow.

The image shifted. It was the same church and the same gathering, but a different time. This time, it was a woman who took off her mask. She had the same glowing eyes as the man. She recited the same thing he did, and when the skull had disappeared and her eyes turned back to the regular color, she moved back into the circle and replaced her bird mask.

Several other people did this exact thing in several different clips.

"This is interesting and all… but explain what it has to do with me." I told it.

The image shifted again. It was the grim reaper library, looking almost exactly as it had before. There was some sort of difference that I couldn't see, however. I looked at all the people walking up to the grim reaper library and realized that the houses behind the grim reaper library were still intact. The 'great murder' as it was called, had not taken place yet. They walked into the library and grabbed the golden oracle from the shelf.

The head of the group was wearing a white cloak with the same strange symbol I had seen in the golden oracle before tattooed on the back of the coat. A hand emerged and flipped the book cover open. The person recited the same spell as I had a few minutes ago.

"Tell me what is to become of us." The book leapt out of her hands and shone in front of the woman. To my astonishment, I heard a voice coming from the book. It was like many different voices speaking together.

"What you do is sinful. It is a shameful disgrace to your existence as a grim reaper."

"Why you…"

"You must stop your actions at once."

"Or what will happen?"

"You will be destroyed entirely. You will be turned into dust by the seventy fourth true child of death from the ninth district."

The book snapped shut. She seized the oracle and threw it against the wall. It made a hole in the wall, but the book was unharmed. The cloaked woman turned towards the group that was gathered there.

"Kill everyone in district nine. Do you hear me? Don't leave a single family or child alive. We need that child of death gone! We will show them that the century's rebellion will not be shown down by any child of death. We are the true children of death! I should be that true child! KILL THEM ALL!" She yelled.

"You stupid woman." I whispered. Even I knew that a prophecy could not be avoided. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be, and nothing could change it. The oracle snapped shut. I caught it and replaced it on the shelf. I walked automatically to my house, like a machine.

I dug through all the crates and boxes until I found my grandfather's black doctor mask. I looked at it and picked it up as if it was a piece of glass. The black mask shimmered in the light. I walked to the mirror and put it on my face. I didn't know if I was that child of death or not. Most likely not, but when that time came when the child of death would be known, I would fight beside them. I would help them kill that woman. I would help them turn her to dust for her crimes.

_This face and this mask will haunt her every time she closes her eyes. I will have my revenge. _I promised myself.


	21. a winter's day outside

**Hey people! Just thought I'd let you know that there is going to be a time skip in the story. So these few chapters are going to be kinda like filler chapters to fill in the gap. It's basically what William and Leah do together. Me and my friend might do a William and Leah cosplay and lip synch to 'anything you can do I can do better', because let's face it, they're a really competitive couple. XD We might post the video on YouTube so you people can see it. That is a maybe, though. I still have to talk to my friend about it. XD**

Chapter 21: a winter's day outside

Winter came quickly in the shinigami world. Sometimes it came far too quickly, like this year. I woke up one morning to find nearly three feet of snow on the porch. Well… on the bright side, we got the day off from work. On the down side, I had to shovel my way out of three feet of snow. Snow would make more snow. And if I didn't dig myself out of this by today, by tomorrow I would be up to the roof in snow. Sure, I could enchant a shovel to do the job, but disenchanting it is a completely different story. I have never managed to disenchant anything I've put a spell on. Let's say that every time I tried to do so, I would end up putting another spell on it to undo that one and it would keep going until I just gave up and threw whatever I had put a spell on in the trash or took it to Grell. He usually couldn't repair it either but under some rare occasions he actually could fix it.

So I got to work. I only owned one winter coat, a red insulated bomber jacket which I didn't really like because despite the fact that it was insulated, it didn't really keep me warm. Sometimes I would play a trick on Grell where I would climb onto the porch roof of his house and wait until he walked outside, then jump on the roof and make all the snow fall on his head. It was very fun. If it was anyone else, he probably would have killed them, literally. But being his best friend, I got away with just a snowball in the face, or a fistful of snow stuffed down my shirt which was yesterday as Grell was leaving for work. Considering the fact that he wore glasses, Grell actually had pretty good aim when it came to snowball fights. He would beat me almost every time. Speaking of snowball fights…

I picked up a handful of snow and shaped it into a perfect snowball. Then I lobbed it right at Grell's window. It hit the window with a thump. I threw another one. It hit the window again. Grell's face appeared in the window. His hair was a red haystack. It was so funny, as it got so tangled in the morning. But even after that he wouldn't cut his hair for anything. I waved up at him and held the shovel in front of me and pointed to the snow. He held up one finger and walked away from the window. That meant 'one minute'. I think. _He'd better be coming._ I thought to myself. _I can't shovel all of this by myself. _

Exactly ten minutes later Grell walked out of the house. I was waiting for him with a snowball. It knocked his glasses clean off his face. He shook his head quickly to get the snow out of his hair and put his glasses back on.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"For keeping me waiting" I threw a shovel at him. "You said you'd be one minute. You kept me waiting for ten. You can't expect a lady to shovel snow all by herself." He caught it and looked at it like I'd given him a dead rat and not a piece of wood and plastic. "Come on, get going" I said as I dug into the snow. He shovelled half heartedly. Most of the snow had actually been cleared away by the snowman we had made in the middle of the lawn and then had fun blowing up and hacking apart with my fusion cannon and his chainsaw.

"Hey, want to go down to that hill later on? We can go tobogganing. We can even invite Will to come with us."

"I don't think William would like to come… but hey, why not…"

I walked back into the house and picked up the phone and called William.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me"

"Oh, Leah. Good morning"

"Good morning. Grell and I were just going to go down to the hill by the pier, maybe snowboard and toboggan for a little bit. Would you like to join us?"

"Hmm… I'm not really one for sports"

"Come on, please? It's going to be so much fun"

He sighed. "Fine."

"Yay! Thanks!" I said happily. I paused. "You sound annoyed."

"It's because you always get what you want."

"It's your fault for agreeing to go."

"Why have I gotten so soft lately…?" he muttered. I laughed.

"You know, sometimes that's a good thing."

"Perhaps, but not in my case." I laughed. I still hadn't gotten William to laugh yet. That was another thing I had to do.

"I'll see you at noon."

"All right. Goodbye"

"Bye" I hung up. Exactly at noon, the doorbell rang. I laughed. William was always on time for everything. I let him in and hugged him.

"It's so good to see you." I let go of him. "Something's different…"

"I fell into a snowdrift."

I cracked up and burst out laughing. Something about the deadpan way he said it just killed me. It was true. William's hair was completely wet and his bangs were in his eyes instead of neatly combed in a side part like usual and the long black coat he had placed on the coat rack was covered in snow.

"What's so funny?" He wondered, raising an eyebrow.

"It's so not like you to fall into a snowdrift." I said, still giggling.

"Did you perhaps notice that the snow is three feet deep, and even deeper in the snowdrift?"

"Yes I did… I managed to dump that much snow on Grell this morning during a snow fight." I said matter of factly as I threw a spare towel over his head.

"I guess he deserved it."

"Hey!" Grell called through the window. "Not nice! And you…" His gaze rested on Leah, who gave him a malicious smile. "I'll get my revenge today."

"Ok" I said, shrugging.

"Let's get going before the snow melts." Grell said, throwing a pair of earmuffs at me.

"Where was your energy when I needed you to help me clean the driveway?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well… I did help you clean it, didn't I?"

"Not really, no"

In minutes, we headed outside, me and Grell still arguing about who helped clean the driveway more. It finished when William hit Grell over the head with his death scythe.

"Hey! Why are you always on her side?"

"Because she's right most of the time" I smiled and hung onto William's arm.

"Yes I am"

Grell gave me a jealous look.

"You are so dead today."

"Of course I am."

We headed to the hill, Grell carrying three sets of plastic carpets.

"I bet I can go faster than you can." He said as he gave me one.

"No you can't."

"Want to race?"

"Sure, but you can't use your death scythe."

"Neither can you, then. You can't use your telekinesis powers either." Grell grabbed one plastic toboggan and slid down the hill. I carefully positioned mine and put one foot on it.

"You're crazy" William said. "You're not going down that thing standing up, are you?"

"Yes I am" I said as I kicked off and slid down the hill. I admit, I had several near misses when I nearly hit a few trees, as it wasn't easy to steer standing up, but I did manage to get down the hill faster than Grell… until I crashed into him.

"Hey, look out!" I yelled. Grell looked up as I crashed into him and we both flew into a snowdrift. We sat up, covered in snow, laughing like crazy. Grell took his glasses off and wiped them free of snow. After several rounds of tobogganing and snowboarding, we went down the hill to have a snowball fight.

I was concentrating so hard on trying to win that I accidentally hit William with a snowball.

"That's it!" William said. "You'll be sorry for that!" He made a snowball and threw it at me. I was so surprised that I forgot to dodge it. I laughed and threw one again. From then on, it was a three way snowball fight. Pretty soon, all of us were covered in snow. William had hit Grell in the face twice with a snowball. It was a pretty good hit, seeing as it sent Grell falling into a snow bank.

I was happy to say that all of us had fun.

"See, that wasn't so bad" I said as William, Grell and I walked back from the hill. William and I were holding hands.

"It was better than I expected"

"Of course it was. You need to go outside more often."

"I have a schedule to follow."

"If you fit stupid, unpredictable me into your schedule, you can find time to go outside." He smiled.

"Tomorrow after work?"

"Sure… that is if it doesn't snow like hell again."

"Then it's a date"

"I wonder where we're going to go."

"It's a surprise"

"Ugh! You of all people know I hate surprises!"

"Too bad"

I sighed. The sun shone down on the shinigami world, reflecting off the snow as we walked in a winter wonderland.

**End of chapter 21! XD I was actually thinking of putting a chapter where William and Leah do go on a date. I'm open to suggestions on where they should go. :D **

**Thanks for reading!**

**~darkironprincess17**


	22. discussion

Chapter 22: discussion

Winter turned into spring and before I knew it, it was April. My birthday was coming up soon, something I was looking forwards to. Time flew faster than I could blink. After all, it does fly when you're having fun. And I was having the time of my life. It had been a year and a half since I first walked through the doors of the Shinigami School, and eight months since William and I started dating.

Currently, everyone in the management team including myself sat in the conference room in the library. Recently, there had been an outbreak of demon activity near the borders of the shinigami world. We were starting to worry that the protective barriers might not hold. We could deal with the shadow demons; I had proved that myself when I fought an army of them singlehandedly and won. What worried us was their numbers, and if there were greater demons in that army. It took at least one grim reaper to get rid of one greater demon. Without a death scythe, grim reapers basically stood no chance against a greater demon. We were debating on how to act.

"I say send a team of grim reapers out the barriers to get rid of all the demons."

"You can't be serious. We'll need at least three times as many shinigami as we have at the moment to fight those things."

"Leah's right. If we leave the world to fight, the rest of the shinigami realm will be left unguarded. Who knows what they want from us?"

"Perhaps it's not just the demons." William said. "Someone might be controlling them. Many demons are too bloodthirsty and useless to make plans of their own and arrange themselves as they've done here."

"That's a thought" Cheryl agreed. "But who would it be? The demon king?"

"No. We've worked in cooperation with Hell for a very long time now. The demon king and demon queen have our trust. They are… more or less civilized… unlike the rest of their kind. I'm positive they wouldn't allow this."

"You're saying it's another grim reaper?" I asked.

"Chances are that's the case."

"So what next? Do we interrogate every grim reaper? It could be any one of us!" Cheryl said. I looked at her, my eyes narrowing. _Yes. It could be any one of us. Including you, Cheryl Black. _I sat back and thought for a minute.

"That isn't important at the moment. Our most imminent threat is the demon army waiting for us. The best we can do at the moment is to strengthen the enchantments around our world, and perhaps lay a few spell traps." I said. Cheryl's cell phone rang.

"Hello?" Her face fell slightly, and with every passing second got even sadder.

"I understand. Thank you." Her voice was wobbly as she hung up. She addressed everyone. "I'm very sorry, everyone. I'll have to leave the managerial class. I'm retiring from my position as a grim reaper. Very urgent family problems…"

She picked up her bag and ran out of the room.

There was a little bit of talk, but in the end, we resumed to our conversation. We decided to go along with my idea for now. After all, there was little we could do. We would contact the demon king and demon queen and let them know what was going on.

William and I walked out of the grim reaper library.

"What's on your mind?" He asked.

"It was kind of sudden how Cheryl just ran out on us like that. Family problems… I guess I understand, but…"

"You never liked her, did you?"

"No." I admitted. "Something was always odd to me about her. There are just small things, very little details that I've been noticing, and I don't like them one bit."

"Are you talking about your final exam?"

"That and other situations like it."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow. In the meantime, would you care to be ready at seven?"

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"I told you I hate surprises"

"You only have a few hours to wait. I'm sure it won't be too much torture."

I sighed and said goodbye. At home, I told Grell about everything that happened, including the fact that Cheryl left.

"Family problems?" Grell wondered. "I didn't think she'd have a family. Probably a husband, lucky woman… perhaps a child or two…"

"Why did you say she has no family?"

"Well, her parents died several hundred years ago. She has no one left."

"Hmm…" I'd have to go look up whether or not she was married.

"Do you have a date with Will again today?"

"Yes I do."

"Ooh, how exciting. Have you kissed yet?"

"What? No! It's not like that yet."

"Come on, Lee-lee, you're such a prude. How long have you been dating now?"

"Eight months…"

"That's almost a whole year! Think about it. What do normal human couples do?"

"I wouldn't know, Grell. I have only ever seen, let alone talked to a human a few times in my entire life. I've got no intentions to start going into the human world more often than I have to."

"Fine, what about death god couples?"

"I dunno…"

"They hug, they kiss, they hold hands, sometimes more than that… how many times have you and Will done any of those things?"

"We hold hands… sometimes… we hug… sometimes..."

"My point exactly, darling! Your relationship is barely making any progress!"

"He's just as much of a prude as I am!"

"So what?"

"What's the point of this conversation?" I asked as I took my glasses off and put them in my pocket. I was trying not to blush. If William kissed me that would be so nice… but it was far too embarrassing to think about.

"Your relationship needs a bit more spice, that's all."

"Spice by whose definition?" I muttered. Knowing Grell, I wouldn't be ready for his 'spicy' standard for a couple hundred years. "Anyway, I've got to go get ready…"

"Just think about it. You'll be a lot happier."

"Uh huh…"


	23. 23

Chapter 23:

I sat in my room, getting ready for my date. I couldn't get over what Grell had said about her having no family. Family… I remembered clearly the day that Grell had come home after he'd killed that woman Madam Red, completely beaten up, looking like he had just risen from the dead after the fight with the demon. It had been one of the scariest moments of my life. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him.

_I was sitting in the living room on that day, pen and notebook in hand, writing. I heard the door creak open and shut. Grell was finally home. I smiled._

"_Welcome home." I called. There was no answer. My smile faded a little. "Grell?" I called, standing up, walking through the kitchen to the window. "Grell?" I looked through the window and nearly died of shock. I jumped through the window and helped him to the couch. "Sit down now." I ran to get the first aid kit that I kept in the kitchen for safety reasons. I ran back into the house._

"_What the hell happened to you?" I demanded._

"_I got into a fight with the demon there…" He looked at me. "It looks worse than it really is… why are you crying, Leah?"_

"_You're such an idiot." I whispered as I hugged him. "Why wouldn't you listen to me? I told you so many times to get out of it if a greater demon was there. And now look what's happened to you. Don't you ever dare do that to me again! You're the only one I have left…"_

"…_I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I didn't know… that it would make you this upset. I'm sorry." _

The only thing that kept me sane-more or less was him. Grell was my only family and same thing with him. What would happen if someone lost their family entirely? In William's case, he had become the calm emotionless jerk; the mask behind which he was hiding was taking me over two years to break now. And that was in the better case. Grell and I… we'd be twice as bad as Madam Red. She felt insane as well, that she no longer had a family, and could no longer make a family of her own, so she had gone on an insane killing spree. Would this happen to anyone else put in her shoes? If Cheryl Black and Madam Red were alike, I had perfect reason to suspect that Cheryl was behind the great murder, and was behind the demon army gathered outside our world at the moment.

I shook my head and cleared out all the thoughts. It was nearly seven. I combed bits of my hair with the color changing brush and turned some of the pieces light brown. I then curled it and adjusted my bangs. I didn't want to think about this any more than I had to. Tonight was a night to have fun. I picked out a short red skirt and a long black sleeveless top, paired with black heels and a red jacket.

The doorbell rang. I ran to get it.

"Hey" I hugged William. He was smiling, something which wasn't as rare as it had been a year ago.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Where are we going?"

"I'm sure you'll like it."

We drove into the city.

"Wow, I've never been to a restaurant before." I looked up at the building.

"Well, this year is a time for trying things out. Let's get going." He pulled me out of the car and we walked inside. We were given a spot outside on the raised patio. We had a full view of the dark sparkling water and the sky sprinkled with stars above it. It was a beautiful night.

We spent a long time talking. It was a great evening.

"I don't think we've ever seen a clear sky like this in a long time."

"Yeah… especially since it's been raining like hell most of the time." I agreed. For once the sky seemed to be agreeing with the world. Whenever it wasn't raining, it was snowing or just plain cloudy. Pretty soon, it got really dark and really cold, so we decided to go home. We had spent roughly four hours in the restaurant. He walked me to the front porch of my house.

"Thanks for tonight." I said. "I had a really nice time."

"I'm glad you did." Before I could change my mind, I stretched up on my tip toes, put my arms around his neck and kissed him quickly. I had no idea what made me do it. Did I have too much champagne? But it was impossible for shinigami to get drunk. Besides, I only did have one glass. Ah well… what's done is done. I was really surprised when he kissed me back.

"I'll see you tomorrow then." He said.

"Yeah. See you tomorrow." I said happily. I waved goodbye as he drove away. I was so happy. It felt like I was living in a dream, where absolutely everything was perfect. I mean, how much better could my life get? Sadly, I didn't know that I was about to wake up from that dream, really suddenly.

**ARGH! I'm finally done this chapter! This was such a writer's block for me. :/ You'd think I t wasn't much, but this was one of the hardest chapters to write for me because I literally had no ideas, so please forgive me when this chapter isn't as good as it should have been. I couldn't even think up a title for this chapter. The fillers have ended, so we can move significantly forwards to the climax in the next few chapters. :/ look forwards to a lot of fighting and a lot of death XD **

**As well as a lot of cute scenes. XD The last chapter is going to be a date chapter, and probably the fluffiest of all of them. No guarantees, though. There might be more fluff really soon. XD**

**~Darkironprincess17 **


	24. betrayal

Chapter 24: betrayal

I woke up suddenly, like I had a nightmare. Of course, that was impossible, but it was the same sense of fear. I had no idea why. The sky was clear today. It seemed like a wonderful day. Suddenly, I wasn't so happy I had a day off today. I had earned a day off today because I had worked a full day extra of overtime. It didn't seem like such a good thing now. Something bad was lurking in the corners, just waiting to happen. I felt like a small animal cornered by death, knowing it was about to happen with no way of escaping it.

I got up slowly. Grell had a day off today as well, thankfully. One less person I had to worry about today. I turned on my computer. It held barely more than 4 GB, but it was enough to hack the system. I quickly rewired the computer to hide the signal and typed into the hack code to break into the files. The files had all the information about every shinigami alive, including marriage records and children counts. I'd never tried to hack into something this powerful, but I had to do it. The screen lit up.

Hacking… ten percent complete.

I knew it was going to take a while, so I went downstairs and ate breakfast. I walked around my house, picking up spare pieces of paper off the floor that I had left while doing my research. Yeah… my house had seriously gotten messy in a very short time. I'd have to clean soon.

When I walked upstairs, the hack had been completed. I quickly sat down to browse through the files. I couldn't believe my luck at how easily it had loaded. I quickly went to Cheryl's profile. I read it over as fast as I could, copied her file into my computer and quickly shut off the hacking system before the higher authorities could get wind of what I was doing. I looked at the copied file. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was slowly starting to piece this together. Cheryl wasn't married. Nor did she have any children. Her parents were both only children and were both dead, along with her grandparents and everyone else. She had left in such a hurry yesterday that I wasn't sure if she had even given back her death scythe. It was necessary to give back one's death scythe once they permanently retired from becoming a grim reaper. I hurriedly picked up my phone and called William, only to realize that he was at work and that his cell phone would be turned off. Shit… I had a feeling that something really bad was going to happen soon. I didn't even bother to change into my working clothes. I just ran out in my black army pants, black t-shirt and black combat boots, not caring if my students saw me or not.

I made it to the library as quickly as I could. I ran to the front desk.

"Oh, Miss Hayes. How may I be of service?" The grim reaper woman asked pleasantly.

"One of the management team's members, Cheryl Black retired from being a grim reaper yesterday. Could you check if she gave back her death scythe?"

"Just one minute please…" The woman looked through the huge stack of folders on her desk. Her pleasant smile changed into a confused frown faster than someone had wiped a slate. "It's strange… No, I don't see it anywhere. You don't think she didn't give it back?"

"I don't know what I think at the moment. Thank you for your help."

I wandered into the classroom, thinking that I'd wait for William and tell him what was going on later. I heard a loud crash come from the arena. I thought nothing of it, thinking that it was probably just a student who set off a landmine by accident. But pretty soon, I heard more bangs. I could vaguely hear William telling everyone to get to the exits. I ripped open the door and ran into the arena.

The outside wall had been completely broken in. In the rubble stood a figure in a white cloak; the same woman the golden oracle had shown me. Her face was covered by a white porcelain mask with intricate red and gold detail.

"I don't know what you think you're doing." William said. "This is a private training ground. If you will not leave by yourself, I will make you leave."

"Suit yourself." The woman said. "You will die before I leave." She walked towards William, who stood his ground, not looking the least bit worried. I ran down to the arena and jumped off the roof. I landed a few meters away from William, a rocket launcher twice my height forming from my death scythe.

"I don't think so. Take one more step towards him and I'll make sure you're full of holes. You'll be Swiss cheese by the time I'm done with you." I said, swinging the barrel of my rocket launcher on my shoulder and aiming the scope straight at the woman.

"Leah? What are you doing here?"

"I had a bad feeling." I said to William. "I'll explain after we kick her out of here."

Both of us got ready to fight. I had to admit the woman was an amazing fighter. She alone could hold off two grim reapers, not to mention two powerful grim reapers. She fought us on entirely equal terms. She dodged expertly while fighting. Her death scythe was a sword. I had never seen Cheryl's death scythe before, so I couldn't say whether or not it was hers. A sword was a pretty common death scythe.

She caught me by surprise and stabbed me. I managed to block the lunge with the barrel of my death scythe, but the blow knocked the wind out of me and sent me flying into the wall. My death scythe flew away from me and landed in an entirely different corner of the arena. I tried to use telekinesis to make it come back to me, but the woman uttered a spell and it got chained to the wall. I wasn't strong enough to rip the chains from the wall. I began to panic. I wasn't hurt, but William would be.

If we fought her on equal terms two on one, she would kill William in a one on one duel. He was losing quickly. He hadn't gotten hurt yet, but it was only a matter of time. I felt in my pockets, hoping that this was the right set of pants. Yes it was! My pocketknife was still in my pocket. I gripped it. I had only one shot.

I waited until I had a perfect profile shot of her mask. Her attention was entirely riveted on William. She didn't see me move as I threw the knife like a dart. It shattered her mask and made a long gash across her nose. She shrieked and turned away, but not before I got a good look at her face. So did William.

It was Cheryl Black.


	25. new revelation

Chapter 25: new revelation

I was filled with such anger, I could barely move. The person I'd hated my entire life. The person who was responsible for the deaths of my parents and pretty much my entire district had been right in front of me since the moment I'd walked through the doors of the room with the armonica. It was never a good idea to get me angry. Especially get me as angry as I was now. It might as well be considered suicide.

My eyes began to glow. A cold wind swirled through the arena in a loose circle. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Cheryl was clutching her nose. She shot one look at me, like a cornered rabbit and moved to run away, running back through the hole in the wall and out into the ruins.

"NO YOU DON'T!" I yelled. The chains busted in one swift movement, and my death scythe sailed back into my hands. I made two shotguns. I fired several shots at her as she ran. I ran after her. I'd never catch up to her to use my death scythe in its original form, so I used artillery. My combat pistols turned into two semi automatic machine guns. I shot her in the shoulder.

"Got you, you bitch! I swear I'm going to put as many holes in your body as people I've seen die!" I yelled. "One for all the people I knew!" Bang. Another shot hit her in the waist. My death scythe turned into a barrel gun, free firing a spray of bullets. A third shot hit her in the knee. She screamed in pain. She muttered a spell and created a portal. She quickly jumped through it. I moved to follow her, but someone caught my wrist.

"Let me go!" I struggled to free my hand from William's grip. "I said let go of me!" He loosened his grip on my hand, but the portal had disappeared. "Why did you do that?" I demanded. "I could have killed her and all this would have been over."

"There's no need to be rash. No one knows it was Cheryl besides us two. If you killed her now, her allies would probably twist her words around to make it so that it sounded like she was innocent and you were the suspect to blame. We have to wait before we act. I understand your pain. I want to kill her just as much as you do. We can't make any stupid decisions just yet."

I sighed and nodded, feeling defeated. My chance for revenge had just slipped through my fingers.

"You're right. You're not hurt at all, are you?"

"Thankfully not. How about you?"

"I'm fine, too."

"That's good." William sighed in relief. He glanced back towards the arena. "Let's get out of here. I don't think it's a good idea to hang around." I agreed. We walked away aimlessly, unsure of where we were going but not really caring.

"I can't believe it!" I raged. "That stupid woman had enough idiocy to be able to break into a training facility and think she could get away with it, not to mention the possibility of hurting others, and on top of everything she- GAH!" I tripped over and unseen rock and fell on my face. "Ouch…" I picked myself up. I heard a strange sound and looked around. Someone was laughing, but no one was around us. I looked at William. He had his hand lightly over his eyes, a smirk on his face. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was seeing. William was laughing. He was actually laughing. It wasn't a full out laugh, more like a chuckle, but I was so surprised I forgot about the pain in my foot.

"Ah… I'm sorry." He said, still smirking. "Are you all right?"

"Yes… are you all right?"

"Me? I'm fine… why?"

"You're… laughing! You're laughing! I've never heard you laugh in the entire time I've known you! Probably no one's ever heard you laugh… It's just surprising, that's all."

"It's true, I haven't laughed in a long time" He admitted, still smiling. "Forgive me. It was mean to laugh over someone else's injury. You just looked so funny…"

"No, its okay, really it is. I'd fall on purpose if it meant hearing you laugh. You have a nice laugh." I said, and it was true. He did have a nice laugh.

He pointed at a bench at the pier. The water was sparkling in the sun. As soon as I saw it I completely forgot about all my anger and all my points of revenge and hate. I had some time with William when I normally wouldn't. Why not make the most of it? I smiled.

"Why don't you say we sit down for a bit? We've been walking for a little while." I nodded happily. Revenge could wait… for now.

**Ok short chapter again. sorry people. XD it only felt fitting to end it there, seeing as in the next chapter or two there's going to be a war. :D thought I'd shove in a little fluff before all the blood and death. William actually laughed! it's a miracle! XD**

**~darkironprincess17**


	26. war

Chapter 26: war

The next day after, we were preparing for war. We had made it known that the spy had been Cheryl the entire time. Now every experienced grim reaper was going to be called back from the human world to help fight. I assumed Cheryl had figured her time as one of us was up as well. She had deactivated the force field that kept the city safe, and the only things keeping the demons at bay were my black spells. It was like a circle of repetitive landmines. Every time someone stepped on the trap wire, the entire wire would explode in roaring flames, over and over and over again. We knew that this wasn't a new spell to Cheryl, and that she would soon find a way to counter it and let the demons into the city. All the grim reapers that were unable to fight were sent off into the human world for safety's sake. It was more safe there than here, that was for sure.

I grabbed the headset from my desk as William walked up. I looked up questioningly. He nodded. This device would allow me to send a message to every grim reaper in the human world at the moment. It would be like a voice was speaking in their ear. We could use animal communication and use them as messengers, but there wasn't enough time, and animal reliability was doubtful. I spoke into the microphone.

"All Shinigami dispatch agents, report immediately back to the shinigami world. I repeat, drop whatever you are doing right now, it can wait, and head back as fast as you can to the shinigami world." I ended the connection and sighed. William and I both walked outside. Shinigami were coming out of portals near the library, all wearing a confused expression on their faces. I pointed north, to where a black mass could be seen. The demon army had finally broken through my last spell. I must say, it held longer than expected. It had bought us just enough time.

"If you want to modify your death scythes to make them better in combat, this is the time." I said. "It doesn't matter, legal modification or not. If you wish to add anything to your death scythes, do it right away. After the battle, you are required to turn them back the way they were."

Pretty soon, all the shinigami ran in to make death scythe adjustments. I was quite surprised to see what kinds of interesting weapons they all made. One had created a double sided axe that was nearly as tall as he was, another had made a weapon that looked so strange I couldn't even tell what the hell it was supposed to be.

I grabbed my death scythe and the army of grim reapers moved out to meet the demon army. We met in mid city, the place in the shinigami world with the high buildings of multiple stories. At the head of the army was Cheryl black and her coven of white cloaked people with the same strange symbol on their backs.

"So you still try to fight." Cheryl said, smiling.

"We do our best to defend our world from traitors like you." I said. "Why would you do something like this? Why would you betray your own people?"

"Betrayal?" Cheryl asked, and began to laugh. "You don't understand anything, do you, foolish girl? The shinigami society betrayed me! I am getting my revenge! I was branded as an outcast for no reason, as an impure shinigami from my very birth."

"For a reason" Grell muttered.

"I came to the point where I had the epiphany that all shinigami are impure souls! Those souls should be punished while those who are pure should rule! For a while, the shinigami world was mine. Then the stupid prophecy came along about the child of death bringing us down. There was no way I would allow all my hard work to be destroyed by a child of death! So I set out to kill everyone in district nine. However, it seems you three survived." She pointed at William, Grell and I.

"That was an error I didn't think would happen. Either way, you three die today. Grell, if you hadn't stuck together with Leah, I'd think of letting you live. William, it's sad that you fell in love with her."

William stiffened. "How so?"

"You could have ruled by my side along with her. You could have abandoned her and let her die and been with me instead."

"Somehow I highly doubt it." I said, my eyes narrowing.

"Leah's right. I'm not the type of person to abandon someone else. Nor am I the type of person to cooperate with demon filth like you have here."

Cheryl sneered. "Those demons will be the last thing you see today." She turned towards her army. "Kill them all! Kill all who dare oppose me!"

With that, the demons ran forwards and the chaos began. I ran around, hacking and slicing demons to bits, fighting my way through the crowd to get to Cheryl. I engaged her in combat, both of us circling around fighting each other.

"Child of death, you will regret the bullets you shot at me."

"I'm sure I won't" I replied. "I'd love to put some more holes in you."

"You won't get the chance!" She slashed at me. I sidestepped, flipping backwards and lunged again. The fight continued. I wanted to look around to see if William and Grell were all right, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Cheryl or I would lose. I could hear the roar of his chainsaw, so I was sure Grell was fine.

"My lady!" A voice yelled. A person in a white cloak tossed the golden oracle at her. Cheryl caught it and smiled, a triumphant grin on her face

"You lose" She opened the book and recited a spell. The book fired a beam of yellow energy at me. I dodged it and it left a scorching hole in a building. The building… I ran into the building, the beams of energy following me. "You can't escape us!" Cheryl screamed. _I'm not running away. _I smiled as I ran to the door and opened it. I ran out onto the roof. Cheryl followed me. I had been studying the previous children of death and what they had to do to activate their powers. I had a 50/50 chance of this working. If it didn't work, I would die.

I backed up until I was at the edge of the building.

"You have nowhere left to run." Cheryl said, aiming the book at me. "I'll give you a chance. One last chance. You can join our side and stay with us. You can have more power and more control. We can give you everything you want. Just come to our side."

"Not a chance."

"What other choice do you have?" Cheryl asked, smiling. I hated that smile. She thought she'd won. I smiled in return and closed my eyes. Cheryl's smile vanished as I closed my eyes. "Someone stop her!" She screamed. She realized what I was going to do far too late.

I took a step back and fell off the building.


	27. falling

Chapter 27: falling

I hurtled off the building, falling at speeds faster than a shinigami could teleport through a portal. I could hear people screaming my name, but it was strangely muffled. All I could really hear was the wind howling in my ears.

_It has to be now._ I pleaded. _Before she takes the book and destroys me. It has to be now._

I stopped falling. The wind stopped howling in my ears. I opened my eyes slowly. I was suspended in mid air, halfway between the ground and the top of the building. Huh… I thought I'd been falling for longer than that. Golden mist was circling my entire form, like a cinematic record, except it was made of pure gold. I took a breath and spiralled back upwards towards the building. I felt strong and powerful. This was the power of death. A huge golden skull formed behind me as I hovered in front of the building, eye level with Cheryl. Panicking, she aimed a blast at me, but the skull opened its mouth and the spell got absorbed. Then, it spat it right back out at her. She ducked just in time and it crashed into another building. She ran downstairs. A smart move. If she stayed up here, I would kill her before she could even blink.

I raised my hands and golden sound waves circulated out towards the ground. Whenever one of them reached a demon, it would shriek and turn into ashes, while it healed the rest of the shinigami who weren't dead. However, my sound waves weren't killing the demons fast enough. There was an entire army of them. I had cut their population in half, but I couldn't do much else. I carefully landed back on the sidewalk. Everyone moved aside and gave me a wide space in which I could stand perfectly. My high heeled boots made clacking noises on the pavement, but it sounded more like metal against metal.

Gachink, gachink, gachink…

I was wearing a knee length dark grey dress with long sleeves. The hem of the dress as well as the sleeves was all ripped up, and I had a thick prison chain tied around my waist, as well as a thinner chain around my neck. My black doctor mask had appeared on the side of my head. Cheryl did look shaken, but she still managed to keep her demeanour.

"Hmph. So you activated your powers."

"Yes." The gold mist was still swirling around me, forming pictures of skulls.

"You did make an impact on my army, but what about the rest of the demons? You can't take care of me and them at the same time. You don't have an army of your own. This group of grim reapers is hardly fit to fight anymore. They're all worn out and tired."

"Hmm? Who said I didn't have an army of my own?" I asked, grinning. "You know, being the child of death means that I have control over the dead as well." I raised my arms. The sky grew dark. Cracks appeared in the ground, and in the sides of buildings. Skeletal hands grasped the cracks as the dead clawed their way into our world. Millions of dead grim reapers had surrounded me in seconds. All were robed and hooded skeletons with bright red lights in their empty eye sockets, all holding traditional death scythes like mine.

"Pretty awesome, huh?" I asked. I pointed to Cheryl and the army of demons. "Everyone here is your friend except for those demons and that group of grim reapers. Kill them all." I ordered. Instantly, the army of the undead moved out and engaged the demons.

The second wave of the war began. My soldiers were pretty cool in battle. Every time a demon killed one, it would collapse into a pile of bones and reform on the spot, hacking a surprised demon into ashes. Our army was given new hope and we fought with renewed force. I ducked out of the way of an oncoming blast. I rolled sideways and shot gold mist at the grim reapers. When the mist touched them, they would die. Their souls would be destroyed instantly.

I knocked William out of the way as a blast came in our direction.

"Dammit…. what do I have to do to kill this woman?" I asked through gritted teeth. "If only I could get my hands on that oracle somehow…"

"I'm on it!" Grell yelled as he swung at Cheryl with his death scythe. She skittered sideways and aimed a blast at Grell. He ducked and it took out several demons. They continued fighting for several minutes, but Grell still couldn't get his hands on the oracle.

"You…" she hissed. "You should have never survived!"

I saw what was going to happen before anyone did. There was no time. I ran in front of Grell and stopped the blast with my hand. The yellow light slowly drained into my hand and disappeared. I closed my fist around it. Cheryl cursed and tried to aim another blast of yellow energy, but the oracle wouldn't let her fire another shot.

"Work, dammit!" She screamed, trying to make it fire another spell, but the oracle refused to work its destructive capabilities any longer. She threw the book away and reached for her death scythe, but William knocked it out of her hands. She looked around at all of us, her yellow-green eyes darting around in fear. The battle had stopped. My army had laid down their death scythes and were just standing there, waiting. All the demons were gone. It was deathly silent in the city.

"This is the end." I said quietly. "The end for grim reapers is never pleasant to watch. Look away, please."

Everyone turned away as I said. I walked forwards. As I walked, the ash on the road was picked up by a gentle wind which blew them upwards in a thick grey cloud, obscuring the view.


	28. new times, new life

Chapter 28: new times, new life

I walked down the streets. The arena had been fully repaired. I was so happy. Everyone I had cared about had survived. Up until yesterday, we had been focusing on moving the shinigami families back into the shinigami world, and fixing all the damaged buildings. Thankfully, those buildings were only work industries and not homes. Today was my birthday.

I was twenty three years old. I had actually lived to see my twenty third birthday. And now I didn't have anything to worry about. No one would ever try to kill me again. In the course of a year and a half, I nearly died three times. Could anyone say relief?

I walked over to William's house and knocked on the door. He opened it, smiling happily.

"Happy birthday, Leah"

"Thanks." I said. He led me inside.

"I think you'll like your present."

"I told you not to go overboard." I said, sighing.

"Don't worry, I didn't."

It was nearly dark. The sunset cast a beautiful yellow glow through the window. William filled two glasses with champagne.

"Cheers." I raised mine. The radio was playing softly in the background. The music changed, and I realized it was what we liked to call 'our song'.

"Would you like to dance for a little?"

It was a really nice evening. We spent a lot of time talking, dancing and laughing.

"I'll be right back. Would you mind having a seat?" William asked. I sat down and waited as he disappeared behind a hallway. He reappeared with a small, neatly wrapped box. He gave it to me.

"It looks so nice that I don't want to rip the wrapping paper." I joked.

"What's inside is much better." So I opened it to find a small black box. I popped the catch open and lifted the lid. A small ring glittered in the light. It was simple, but beautiful. It was silver with three red rubies in it. I looked up at William. He smiled and took the box.

"Leah, will you accept my hand in marriage?"

I nodded and he slipped the ring on my finger. I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

The last few lines of our song were playing.

_If this is really how it's going to be… _

We kissed.

…_shouldn't I wake up from this dream by now?_

All I knew that if this was a dream, I sure as hell didn't want to wake up.

THE END.

**Challenge completed! After a long and rocky road with what was probably the hardest fanfiction I've ever written… also the most successful fanfiction and my favourite so far, this journey has come to an end. I just received yet another challenge a week ago, possibly even harder than this one! Does that mean it's going to be more successful than this one? We'll just have to see. The challenge was Grell x female oc. I dunno if I'll be able to pull it off or not. I've already created the OC character. But I'm not going to start writing right away. Instead, we're going to play a fun game with the black butler characters. I'm going to do a Black Butler Dares story just for fun, and all of my OC's are going to be in the game as well. it will be entertaining for you guys, and it's going to give me a break from writing so much! I'll post it up tomorrow, or possibly today. So look forwards to it and send me your reviews and dares!**

**~Darkironprincess17**


	29. AN UPDATE WHOO!

HEY WHAT'S UP EVERYONE LONG TIME NO WRITE

I'M HERE TO DO A LITTLE SURVEY C:

So basically in my time away I've gotten A LOT of asks about whether or not I'm going to have a sequel to sweet with a bit of death exploring william's and leah's lives,

and I've decided I'm gonna do it

I'm going to put up the first few chapters on here and all you guys gotta do is tell me whether or not you want me to continue updating on this story or make an entirely new story

Some added questions:

- would you prefer a more action based story or more romance based? would you like an equal amount of both?

-more grell development? yay or nay?

Feel free to PM me or review with an answer!


	30. the sequelprequel: chapter one

**It's officially here; the sequel to both sweet with a bit of death and love in war! It's going to cover the lives of five shinigami; William, Leah, Grell, Ashlyn and Ronald, eventually Jaymee and what their futures hold for them. Here's chapter one of William. **

**Make sure to check out 'A Long, Long time ago' on Fanfiction~ **

**Enjoy!**

**-Darkironprincess17**

-WILLIAM-

"William! Marissa! Dinner!" comes the voice from the window.

The little girl immediately drops the stick fort she's making and pounces on her older brother. "C'mon Will!"

"I don't wanna" The boy complains, still intently focused on his little sand fort. The kids are still young, the girl being about six and the boy about eight.

"Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll" The girl shakes her brother's arm incessantly. "Mom's not gonna be happy with us"

"Then you go and I'll catch up"

"No!" She clings onto his arm. "I'm staying with you."

After a couple moments of uselessly trying to shake off his sister, the young boy stands and picks Marissa up over his shoulder and trudges towards the house with her, the younger struggling and squealing the entire time in between fits of giggles.

The two Spears children absolutely adore each other. It's doubtful anyone could ever find a closer pair of siblings anywhere in the blue city. They always play together, spend nearly all their time together. They'd chase the neighbour's cat together, make snow-forts together in winter, and if either of them got in trouble, they'd both make sure they both got in trouble and shared the blame.

A little William finally throws open the door and plops Marissa down on the couch, heading over to kick off his shoes. When Marissa kicks off her shoes from the couch, she tries throwing them towards the shoe rack, but she misses miserably. The shoes rocket off the wall, knocking a painting to the ground and several other pairs of shoes before tumbling about a good three feet away from where they should be.

Marissa freaks out and grabs the painting, only to nearly drop it again.

Their mother quietly walks through the kitchen doorway into the living room at the sound of the crash, and merely sighs and shakes her head at her daughter's tearful apologies before taking the frame from her and replacing it on the wall. It's not like it was uncommon. Marissa was so terribly clumsy that she fell at least twice a day, and couldn't even drink something without slopping it on herself first by accident.

William was also clumsy, but not nearly to the same extent. After having been asked if he already required glasses, Will had vehemently shaken his head, dreading the idea of glasses even at this young age. He certainly needed them, but he wasn't going to actually admit that fact yet.

The little pair wander into the kitchen to take their seats as their mother serves them food. Today's dinner is mashed potatoes with chicken and gravy. Unfortunately, it's either William or Marissa who dislike whatever it is their mother cooks, and today it's Marissa's turn to push her plate away in disgust. She picks away at some chicken before stuffing a bunch of mashed potatoes over onto Will's plate.

"Hey!"

Marissa points a finger to her lips, with big pleading puppy eyes.

William sighs and shakes his head at his sister before eating the rest of his food before they were caught.

Moments later, their mother walks in, a bit surprised that Marissa actually ate her dinner. She walks over and ruffles her hair.

"Apple pie for dessert?"

"yeah!" Both siblings yell in unison before high five-ing each other, scrambling out from their seats and chasing each other up the stairs for first dibs on the couch to watch loony tunes.


	31. All new sweet with a bit of death

Calling all sweet with a bit of death readers!

Firstly a _**GIANT**_ THANK YOU to everyone who favourited, followed, reviewed and read sweet with a bit of death. If I could hug every last one of you, I would!

All your support made me truly believe in myself as a writer, and spurred me to take creative writing courses and get even better!

And because it's gotten so much more popular than I ever thought it would be, I'd like to let you know that sweet with a bit of death,- revamped- is now on AO3!

The first chapter is indeed up!

It's being rewritten with:

-better wording,

-more character development,

-brand new plot twists

-more worldbuilding

-more demons

-more shenanigans and hilarity

-and answers to all the questions you might've had at the end!

(psst it's now a trilogy, fully explaining all of the characters and how they are at the very end. I found a lot of reviews asking about William and Leah's children and well... _I decided I'm gonna do it...__gonna be here... _I've decided on a bunch of things since then, extended the timeline, lotsa fun things)

You can read the story on: /works/3281189/chapters/7158281

Please check it out and leave kudos!

love,

darkironprincess17


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